The State Board of Education is close to finishing one of its high-profile job searches.

The board expects to name a new University of Idaho president Thursday.

The board will meet via teleconference at 11 a.m. MST, 10 a.m. PST to select the new president. (To listen in, call (877) 820-7829, and use the participant code: 9096313.)

After the meeting, board member Don Soltman will introduce the university’s 19th president to students, faculty, staff, alumni and media. This meeting will take place in the auditorium of the administration building on the U of I’s campus.

The four finalists for the job are Christopher Callahan, founding dean of Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication; Diane Z. Chase, executive vice president and provost of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas; Scott Green, global chief operating and financial officer of Hogan Lovells, an international law firm; and Elizabeth Spiller, dean of the College of Letters and Science at the University of California, Davis.

The president’s search has been under way since October. More than 50 people applied for the job. Most recently, the board met in executive session to discuss contract negotiations for the U of I and Boise State University presidents’ job.

The board has not yet named a new president for Boise State.

The new U of I president will succeed Chuck Staben. His contract ends this spring, and he plans to take a job as a U of I biology professor in 2020.