DWU begins potentially long process of picking new president

• Robert Duffett

Robert Duffett

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Replacing Dakota Wesleyan University President Robert Duffett may take several months. DWU Board of Trustees Chairman Brad Pratt said it might not be accomplished in time for the start of the 2013-2014 school year.

“I’m not sure yet,” Pratt said Monday. “I know these presidential searches can take a long time.”

He lives and works in North Mankato, Minn., but was in Mitchell on Monday. The DWU Board of Trustees met via a teleconference to discuss beginning the process to replace Duffett.

He said this is the “very beginning of the process.”

“We’re in the preliminary steps,” Pratt said.

Duffett plans to remain on campus through the spring semester, which ends in May, and has said he will stay into June, DWU spokeswoman Lori Essig said.

His first scheduled day at his new job, as president of Eastern University in suburban Philadelphia, is July 1.

Pratt said he knew Duffett was seriously considering moving on, and at the end of last week, he was told Dakota Wesleyan would need a new leader.

“He handed me his letter of resignation on Friday,” he said. “I think he was ready to go out, be out east, be closer to family. I guess I call it his sweet spot.”

Pratt said Duffett will leave with a glittering record of accomplishment.

“Both in regards to the fundraising side of things and the academics,” he said.

“In his years here, Wesleyan has progressed very well.”

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