RISD president search intensifies

ROSANNE SOMERSON took over as interim president of Rhode Island School of Design effective Jan. 1, following John Maeda's decision to accept a position with Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. The presidential search committee has begun preliminary interviews of candidates to replace Maeda, according to the school website. / COURTESY RHODE ISLAND SCHOOL OF DESIGN/DAVID O'CONNOR
ROSANNE SOMERSON took over as interim president of Rhode Island School of Design effective Jan. 1, following John Maeda's decision to accept a position with Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. The presidential search committee has begun preliminary interviews of candidates to replace Maeda, according to the school website. / COURTESY RHODE ISLAND SCHOOL OF DESIGN/DAVID O'CONNOR

PROVIDENCE – The Rhode Island School of Design’s presidential search committee has begun preliminary interviews of candidates to replace former President John Maeda, according to the school website.
In a post dated Jan. 20, the school reports that Board of Trustees Chairman Michael Spalter confirmed that interviews are under way in an announcement to the campus community.
Rosanne Somerson replaced Maeda as interim president on Jan. 1 of 2014 after Maeda left in December of 2013 to take a job as a design partner in California’s Silicon Valley with the venture-capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.
Contacted late Tuesday, Jaime Marland, RISD’s director of public relations would not say how many prospects are in the running, or if Somerson is one of them. The information is confidential, she said via email.
The search committee received nominations or suggestions from nearly 100 members of the campus community “and other interested parties” and the list of candidates is “exceptional,” the post states. Preliminary interviews with candidates identified by the search committee are under way, from which finalists will be selected, according to the website.
“As we have stated from the beginning,” Spalter says in the post, “we remain unwaveringly committed to the principle that [the search] will take exactly as long as it needs to identify the right next leader of our cherished institution. … But we have every confidence that it is moving toward a successful conclusion.”

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