CSUN Groups to Rate Finalists for President : Hiring: Students, faculty and staff will meet with the 4 candidates and use surveys to evaluate them.

Cal State Northridge faculty, staff and some students will get a chance this week to rate their favorites among the candidates to become the university’s new president when the four finalists for the job attend a series of campus meetings, officials said.

Each of the four will be under scrutiny during daylong visits Tuesday through Friday; each of the groups that meet with the candidates will be asked to rate them using a brief questionnaire. The presidential search committee members will observe how the finalists handle those meetings and then later consider the survey results.

The questionnaire is intended to give members of the CSUN community some say in the hiring of a president.

“There’s no sense in having the candidates speak to people if we don’t listen to what they say,” said Colleen Bentley-Adler, a spokeswoman for the 20-campus Cal State system.

James W. Cleary, whose 22-year tenure is the longest among presidents in the Cal State system, announced in September that he would retire June 30 at age 65. The system’s Board of Trustees is slated to announce his successor May 21 after a two-day meeting in Long Beach.

The search committee is not bound by any sentiments that might surface from the campus meetings. But the sessions and the questionnaire--for many years a standard element of Cal State presidential searches--will help the committee select two or three names to forward to the full board.

Cleary now earns $124,020 a year, the top salary paid to the system’s campus presidents. His successor as head of the 30,440-student campus, the system’s third largest, likely will be paid between $116,000 and $124,020.

The finalists are slated to attend a series of nine meetings during their CSUN visit, then tour the campus. Their day will begin with breakfast at 7 a.m. with CSUN’s advisory and alumni boards and will end after a meeting with faculty members.

The finalists are also scheduled to meet with Cleary, his cabinet, top administrators, Faculty Senate leaders, department heads, staff members and student leaders, the last group over lunch. Open-invitation meetings with staff in the morning and with faculty in the afternoon will provide time for questions.

Ronald Stein, vice president for university relations at the State University of New York at Buffalo, will be on campus Tuesday. Claire A. Van Ummersen, chancellor of the University System of New Hampshire, is slated Wednesday.

Blenda Wilson, chancellor of the University of Michigan at Dearborn, is due Thursday. And H. Ray Hoops, vice chancellor for academic affairs at the University of Mississippi, will be there Friday.

The 13-member search committee is to meet May 11 to narrow the candidates to two or three, who will then be interviewed by the Board of Trustees.

The Presidential Selection Advisory Committee started with a pool of nearly 100 applicants.

It has not been determined when the new president will take office.

Cleary plans to stay on salary with the Cal State system for a year under a transitional program for outgoing executives, a campus spokeswoman said.