The Iowa Central Community College Board of Directors is about 30 steps closer to finding a new president of the college.

The applications for the open president position closed on Jan. 28 and the college received “upwards of 30” applications, according to Board President Mark Crimmins.

For the next couple weeks, Crimmins is asking the board members to review those applications to determine which applicants will advance to the next part of the process.

“We are just in the last stages of establishing a search committee, which is going to be made up from a variety of areas of the college and outside of the college,” Crimmins said. “What we’re attempting to do as a search committee is get a wide range of representation, but at the same time keep it at a manageable level.”

Crimmins had previously established a community survey where Iowa Central stakeholders could input their priorities for the next college president.

“We are in the process of organizing and distributing that data,” Crimmins told the Board of Directors on Tuesday. “There are a lot of tremendous questions that they thought should be asked of the candidates.”

The search for a new Iowa Central president began in November after former President Dan Kinney announced that he would take the president’s job at Iowa Western Community College at the start of 2021. Kinney had been at Iowa Central since July 2009.

“It’s moving right along,” Crimmins said of the search for Kinney’s replacement. “I think we will most likely conclude this earlier than we thought we would.”