Iowa Board of Regents will announce Thursday the 10th president of University Of Northern Iowa after conducting a final interview with the contestants in West Des Moines.

Contesting for the top administrative post are Dr. Michael Wartell, 66, the former chancellor at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne and William Ruud, 60, president of Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania.

The third candidate for the post, Dr. Avijit Ghosh, 62, a senior adviser to the president at the University of Illinois, withdrew his application on Tuesday.

The chosen candidate will replace current President Ben Allen, 66, who will officially retire on July.31.

On the other hand, state senator, Jack Hatch, under Senate File 136, wants to create an office of chancellor to supervise Iowa's three state universities and to keep political influences away from Iowa Board of Regents.

The chancellor would be appointed by the governor to serve a four-year term and confirmed after securing two-thirds majority from the Iowa Senate.

The university presidents selected by the governing board, would report directly to the newly created chancellor, who in turn would report to the regents' governing board.

"It's just inserting an authority figure who will then protect the university presidents from outside political interests. It will also allow the three state universities to really act as one higher education system and not compete with each other when it's not in our interest and keep the politics out of it," Hatch told Quad-City Times.