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The university's board names a nine-member search committee and hires a consultant.

Oral Roberts University's board of trustees announced Wednesday that it expects to have a new president in place by or before summer 2009.

The trustees also named a nine-member presidential search committee and hired a search consultant.

The full board met for the second time since replacing ORU's board of regents in January.

The meeting -- private because ORU is a private university and not subject to the Oklahoma Open Meeting Act -- is scheduled to conclude Thursday. ORU did not make the meeting agenda public.

Search committee members include five trustees -- Don Argue of Washington, Jay Betz of Tulsa, board Chairman Mart Green of Yukon, Charles McKinney of Florida and Dr. Glenda Payas of Tulsa -- plus Faculty Assembly President Walter MacMillan, Alumni Association board Chairman Rhae Buckley, Student Association President Joseph Musa and Sheree King, director of student success and retention, a news release states.

Green, whose family donated $70 million to ORU, is leading the committee, college spokesman Jeremy Burton said.

Also Wednesday, the board named Bruce Dingman, president

Dingman said he has worked as a consultant to six presidential searches for colleges, universities and seminaries, including John Brown University in Siloam Springs, Ark., over the last seven years. All of the presidents he helped find are still in their positions, except one who died, he said.

Dingman also works on executive searches for businesses and Christian organizations, he said.

In January, BusinessWeek listed him among "The 50 Most Influential Headhunters."

Dingman said he shares ORU's theology and brings interviewing and reference-checking skills and contacts to the presidential search.

He also can help the committee members come to an agreement about what they are looking for in a president, and he can be an outside voice when the committee is trying to decide which candidate it likes best, he said.

ORU's next president will need to have experience in academic administration, fit the university's Christian theology and fit into the locale, Dingman said.

ORU's board of trustees on Wednesday accepted a committee's reports on the university's needs and the needed qualifications and characteristics of the next president.

The reports were not made public.

ORU leaders were expected to give interviews at the conclusion of the board of trustees meeting Thursday.

April Marciszewski 581-8475
april.marciszewski@tulsaworld.com