Commissioner Glenn Boyce said he is excited about the pool of candidates the IHL Board of Trustees plans to interview for the position of president of Jackson State University. Photo courtesy Institutions of Higher Learning

JACKSON — The Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning board has narrowed its pool of candidates for the future president of Jackson State University. After an executive session Friday morning, Commissioner Glenn Boyce told representatives from JSU and the Jackson Free Press that interviews could begin in about a week and a half or so.

"I think there are about 55 candidates (in the pool).... We're excited about it, and we think amongst those candidates, there'll be a (good option)," Boyce said.

Boyce declined to give specifics on how many candidates the board plans to interview, saying he still needed to update board members who missed the meeting.

He said the Board of Trustees did not have a specific timeline on the interviews. The board and the commissioner conduct the first round of interviews, while the consultant runs background checks on candidates. IHL policy says the board will start checking references of candidates who advance to the second round of interviews, which will happen within a couple weeks after the first round ends.

"We would assume that after the second round of interviews, you'd make a selection." Boyce said Friday.

IHL solicited public participation and input in the selection process with an online survey and engaged a national search firm to help find Dr. Carolyn Meyers' replacement. Meyers announced her resignation from the public HBCU's top post last October.

The selection process involves representatives from several parts of JSU's community. The Campus Search Advisory Committee, composed of 33 members who represent different parts of JSU campus life and academic fields are supposed to vote by a secret ballot for a minimum of five candidates, the IHL search policy states. Then, the search consultant counts the secret ballots and shows those results to the Board of Trustees. The board then picks whom to interview from that list. IHL public relations did not release the specific number of candidates set to be interviewed at press time.

Email state reporter Arielle Dreher at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter at @arielle_amara for breaking news.