BISMARCK N.D.
A tribal college president and former director of North Dakota’s Indian Affairs Commission has been appointed to the committee that will recruit the University of North Dakota’s new president.
The Board of Higher Education voted on Tuesday to add Cynthia Lindquist to the search committee, giving it 17 members. It will look for a successor to UND President Charles Kupchella, who plans to retire next year.
The board’s president, John Q. Paulsen, earlier had resisted appeals to make the panel larger. During a telephone conference call meeting of the board on Tuesday, Paulsen said he had been mistaken. He noted that the committees that recruited UND’s previous three presidents Thomas Clifford, Kendall Baker and Kupchella had Indian members.
“The recommendation I am making today, I perhaps should have made at the outset,” Paulsen said. “I simply did not give adequate recognition to the … importance of the American Indian constituency to the University of North Dakota. It’s just as simple as that.”
Lindquist is president of Cankdeska Cikana Community College at Fort Totten, on the Spirit Lake reservation. She has held the position since October 2003.
Lindquist could not be reached immediately for comment on Tuesday. She was a finalist last year for a seat on the Board of Higher Education, but Gov. John Hoeven instead reappointed incumbent Sue Andrews, of Mapleton, to a second term in the position.
