Jeremiah Shinn, finalist for the University of Montana president job, said he was drawn to it because of its sense of community, evident in higher education in general but especially in Missoula.

“Certainly there’s a sense of community on a lot of campuses, but there’s a particular brand of it here,” Shinn said. “There’s a sense of belonging and a sense of taking care of one another and a sense of really rooting for each other.”

Shinn, the only finalist candidate for the job, held forums Monday with different groups  on campus including students, faculty, staff and the public.

In a public forum, the interim president of Boise State University was introduced as “relatable, approachable, curious and thoughtful, authentic, strategic, resourceful and kind.”

In multiple forums, Shinn talked about the “value proposition” of a university and its return on investment, lauded UM for attaining a top status as a research institution, and said one of the characteristics he brings to the table is showing up.

In at least a couple of forums, Shinn, 49, talked about his own background as a first-generation and low-income student and how it shaped his approach to leading a university.

In January, former UM President Seth Bodnar resigned and soon after announced a run for the U.S. Senate as an independent, and Commissioner of Higher Education Clayton Christian announced an expedited search for a new leader.

Shinn took hours worth of questions on Monday, and in response to one about protecting queer and transgender rights raised in at least two of the forums, the candidate said he operates from the premise that a public university is one that’s for everyone.

“The conversation that I have with our legislators … is that we’re going to serve every single one of our students, and we don’t want there to be barriers to any student success,” Shinn said at the faculty forum.

Shinn said Idaho passed a related law Boise State needs to grapple with, and he’s an optimist, albeit not a Pollyanna, but he said his message is that a university should focus first on what it has the power to do.

“We can care deeply about our students,” Shinn said. “We can do everything we can to get them from first to second year and from second year to graduation. We can prepare them for what happens next. We can keep them safe. We can help them feel a sense of belonging.”

In Idaho, he said the law means the toolkit has changed, but he also said it means a university can lean into creative ways it can support students, and it can focus on the things that disproportionately help students who need it the most.

For example, Shinn said he was a first-generation, low-income student, and he didn’t struggle academically, but he still faced challenges in reaching his degree.

“I was smart enough to be in the classroom. Navigating everything else was really hard,” Shinn said. “I didn’t almost quit because of chemistry or physics or biology. I almost quit because of financial aid, because of the registrar’s office, and because of parking tickets.”

Shinn emerged as the finalist out of more than 70 applicants and a pool Christian said “eclipses” any other presidential search.

He said “an unprecedented number,” six of the eight candidates selected to be interviewed, have president experience of some sort, and Shinn emerged as “a fit” with UM, in part because of his focus on student affairs.

At a press conference following the public event, Shinn addressed a question about budget cuts. The Montana Kaimin has reported that UM proposed cuts to numerous programs this semester.

In response, Shinn said a university needs to “be mindful of viability” for all academic programs, and it needs to be responsive to the needs of students and to its “external environment.”

“Sometimes, there are academic programs that, for whatever reason, are no longer serving student needs,” Shinn said. “We have to take a look at those.”

He said he anticipated the topic would be a constant conversation at the university moving forward: “The world is changing and shifting, and we always want to be relevant for Montana and for our students.”

At the faculty forum, one person said he wanted to know how transparent Shinn would be as a leader.

He said UM administrators publicly tout increases in enrollment but turn around and tell faculty they’re going to cut programs based on enrollment using a different counting method to “spin the results.”

Shinn said he’s not naive enough to believe he and faculty will be in agreement on everything, and in fact, he knows they’ll disagree, but he shows up, in faculty labs, with deans, with individual faculty.

“I’m going to be here to talk about it. I’m going to engage,” Shinn said.

Shinn spoke easily about a university as a business enterprise and how he would support it, and he discussed enrollment, which has stabilized at UM in recent years but was a struggle for more than a decade.

Shinn said students spend 15 hours a week in the classroom, but 153 hours outside the classroom, and he sees it as his job to help make sure the time outside class is “specifically designed to help students be successful academically.”

“Academics is the heart of everything that we do,” Shinn said.

In the past, search groups have brought multiple finalists to meet a campus in a final vetting, but this time, Shinn is the only finalist being introduced to campus at this point.

Christian said the landscape has changed, it’s a “buyer’s market in hiring,” and that dynamic has reshaped the hiring process; in this search, finalists will be presented “one at a time.”

He said the advisory group will be taking feedback on the meetings with Shinn, and he anticipates making a decision within a week or two. If there isn’t agreement about moving forward with Shinn, Christian said other candidates are in the wings with the search, which consulting firm AGB Search helped conduct.

Christian also said Shinn already had a video meeting with leadership from the Board of Regents and would have a regents dinner Monday (it wasn’t clear how many members were participating).

Bodnar, who served as UM president for eight years, was a former General Electric executive who came from the corporate world, and some faculty in Missoula are looking for a leader who is connected to the academic side of the institution.

Tobin Miller Shearer, president of the University Faculty Association, earlier said he wanted a president deeply rooted in academia, and Monday following the public forum, he said he wasn’t yet certain if Shinn had that connection, but he might.

“When I heard him talk at various points today, I heard someone who had a very natural facility and ease with the business component of running a university,” Miller Shearer said. “It’s not a bad thing. I value the fact that he has a PhD and … he’s taught classes.

“That’s a good thing for me. What was missing was a clear and evident passion for the enterprise of learning that is higher education. Maybe it’s there. I didn’t hear it today.”

Shinn has a doctorate of philosophy from Eastern Michigan University, a master of arts in higher education from the University of Michigan, and a bachelor of science in natural science from Arkansas Tech University, according to his resume. His resume also notes he attended the Institute for Education Management, Harvard Graduate School of Education.