MARQUETTE, Mich. (WZMQ) – On Monday, it was announced that Northern Michigan University President Brock Tessman would be leaving the university in July to serve as president of Montana State University.
NMU Board of Trustees Chairman Stephen Young spoke on behalf of the board for their reaction to the announcement.
“We have nothing but best wishes for him and his family,” said Young. “It’s disappointing, we wish he would stay here, but that’s not the case. The challenge is, when you hire somebody good, there’s always people looking to hire him away, and I think this is a situation where that happened.”
According to Young, Tessman had just recently re-signed his contract with Northern only a few board meetings ago. The announcement for his departure came just as abrupt to the board as it did for the rest of the university.
“We did not know about this for very long, he became a finalist out there, and we found out he was one of two candidates about four or five days before he went out for his campus visit,” said Young. “So, it was all kind of sudden.”
Typically, three steps are taken in the process of finding a new president for the university. The same three steps were taken only a few years ago.
“We need to hire a search firm, which we did when we brought Brock in, that’s a pretty standard practice,” said Young. “We have to create a search committee, which will be made up of students, faculty, staff, and community members, that will oversee the process of looking at applicants, whittling it down. The third thing is we have to hire an interim that will step in for the short term while we seek a permanent replacement.”
Once Tessman leaves in July, NMU will continue to build off of his proposals for the future, including student body growth, and building new facilities.
WZMQ will continue to monitor this process as it progresses. More information on Tessman’s decision, visit news.nmu.edu.
