Iowa’s Board of Regents is selecting a former Iowa State University administrator to return as interim president. The Regents are meeting Monday to name Ben Allen interim president.
Allen served four years as ISU’s provost before the Regents appointed him president of University of Northern Iowa in 2006. He led that campus until retiring in 2013.
At UNI, Allen presided over a series of cutbacks at the school to eliminate a $5 million budget deficit. He made the unpopular choice to close the K-through-12 Price Lab School on campus as well as the UNI Museum. He was widely criticized for those moves, but said at the time it's not why he retired.
The Regents propose paying Allen $525,000 – the same annual salary being paid to current ISU President Steven Leath.
Earlier this week, Leath was named president of Alabama’s Auburn University.
He is scheduled to begin that new job in mid-July, but it’s expected Leath will be leaving Iowa State several weeks before that.
Ben Allen -- now 70 years old -- will be Iowa State’s interim until the Regents search and appoint a new president. A timetable for the search process has not been established yet.