It has been almost a full year since Clare Lemke, former assistant director of the Center for LGBTQIA+ Student Success, left Iowa State for a different position.

Lemke’s position has sat empty the entire time, leaving Brad Freihoefer, director of the Center for LGBTQIA+ Student Success, the sole member of the team.

“We’ve got a crew that is really cut across different experiences,” Freihoefer said. “Some who have had a lot of experience in higher education and some with less experience in higher education, but may have had different experiences where they meet some of the needs that this position has.”

Freihoefer is now looking to hire a new student services specialist, which is the same role as the assistant director.

“This position obviously has a lot of student consultation,” Freihoefer said. “It does a lot of program development and implementation for LGBTQIA+ programs, resources and services.” 

Throughout this week, the Center will host four candidates for on-campus interviews. The names of the four candidates have yet to be released.

Each day of the week, except for Wednesday, one of the four candidates will be on campus. They will meet with stakeholders throughout the day, have lunch with LGBTQIA+ student leaders and then go to an open forum.

“The candidates will meet a variety of different stakeholders throughout the day,” Freihoefer said. “Stakeholders are all different; the candidates will be meeting with people who know our work really well, they will be meeting with campus partners who we collaborate with on a variety of events and policies, they will have a chance to meet with LGBTQIA+ student leaders — that is what their day will kind of look like.”

There will be four separate open forums for each of the candidates. On Monday, Tuesday and Thursday the forums will be in the Oak Room of the Memorial Union and on Friday the forum will be in the Gallery Room of the Memorial Union. All of the forums will be 1 to 2 p.m.

“The open forum is an opportunity for candidates to share a little bit about themselves; we’ve asked them a prompt question and then it is really a chance for some Q and A so the Iowa State community can ask some questions and get to know the candidates a bit better,” Freihoefer said. “People will be able to provide feedback through an online form and a paper form we will have provided at the open forums.”

Freihoefer said feedback from students is extremely important to the decision of the candidates.

“The student feedback is really, really important to us in the Center,” Freihoefer said. “I really encourage students to participate. Attend the open forums, fill out those feedback forms, let me know what you are thinking and that really helps to inform us as we work to make a decision on the best person for the role.”