TCU hopes to have a president leading day-to-day operations by the fall of 2023. 

COVID-19 waylaid plans to the university’s leadership structure, but trustees are expected to announce a blueprint for the search in early April. Trustee Sheryl Adkins-Green has been tapped to head the search committee.

A 2016 survey for the American Council on Education found that 65% of college presidents identified budget and financial management as the area that occupies most of their time.

Chancellor Victor Boschini said when the president steps in, he will be raising money and spending a lot more time off-campus. “Right now I’m on campus doing things such as managing the budget and attending meetings.”

The chancellor-president leadership model is standard for universities across the nation, but some universities only have one chancellor or one president. Baylor University and Rice University both have presidents but no chancellor.

The demographics of college and university presidents are changing from what was once an exclusively white male position.

In 2017, Dr. Linda A. Livingstone, who became the 15th president of Baylor, is serving as the university’s first female president.

This year, Rice selected Reginald DesRoches as its next president. DesRoches is the first Black man, first immigrant and first engineer to lead the private research university in Houston.

The TCU search committee, not yet formed, is tasked with ensuring a diverse pool of candidates, but Boschini knows what he wants.

“I’m looking for somebody who fits the culture of TCU — other skills can be learned,” he said.