Committee begins search for new Athletics Director

The search for the new leader of the University of North Dakota Fighting Hawks is underway.

The UND Athletics Director Search Committee met formally for the first time on Monday, Nov. 6. Its mission is to fill the position vacated by current Athletics Director Brian Faison, who will retire at the end of the year after nearly a decade in the role. Faison will serve as a special advisor to the department through June 30, 2018.

The search committee, led by Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Tom DiLorenzo, is comprised of representatives from UND Athletics (leadership, coaches, student-athletes), UND administration, faculty, staff, alumni, and community partners.

“It is clear to me that the UND Athletics Director position is a fantastic job. We have a tremendous athletics department, and the student-athletes and the staff have done incredibly well, especially in the last couple of years,” DiLorenzo said. “There are many people who will want this job, and we’re very excited about that.”

The committee used its initial meeting to ask questions about process, roles and responsibilities, to make final adjustments to the position announcement and description, and to hear from the search firm that will facilitate and assist in candidate selection.

Bill Carr of CarrSports Consulting LLC will visit campus Nov. 8-9 to conduct a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) of the athletics department. Carr will interview athletics leaders, staff, and coaches, members of the Intercollegiate Athletics Committee, UND senior administrators, and a variety of others to create an “Ideal Candidate Profile” for the search committee.

Although the timeline of the search process is tentative, application review will begin in early December, with initial videoconference interviews slated for mid-December. The committee will narrow the pool to 3-4 final candidates who will be invited to UND for on-campus interviews in early January.

Committee members will submit their final recommendations to President Mark Kennedy, who will name a new athletics director by mid-January.

Applicant information will be kept confidential. Only information for the finalists will be made available to the public.

The campus may contact search committee chair Tom DiLorenzo (thomas.dilorenzo@und.edu) or Peter Johnson (peter.johnson@email.und.edu) with questions about the process of the search.