San Jose State University's next president will help shape the future of one of the region's oldest institutions, most likely lead a major fundraising campaign and is sure to make most lists of influential people in Silicon Valley.

Selection of a successor to President Robert Caret will unfold over the next 2 1/2 months, and there is no shortage of opinions about the qualities a new president will need.

At an organizational meeting this summer, campus representatives who are helping screen candidates laid out their ideas of what a president should be: outward-looking but also deeply engaged with the life of the university, passionate about San Jose State's mission, comfortable in the spotlight, able to network with all kinds of people and driven by a can-do attitude.

``It is just critical there be a fit between the president and the culture and the values of the institution,'' said Joseph Crowley, a veteran of the University of Nevada-Reno who has served as interim president since July.

Wednesday is the suggested deadline for nominations, though recruiters will accept candidates through the end of the month. California State University trustees are scheduled to name the president in mid-November.

Many credit the gregarious Caret with helping San Jose State raise its profile externally and appreciate its mission internally. Now the question is what a new president should do for an encore to help the university evolve, especially in the middle of a state budget crisis. San Jose State's 150th anniversary is coming up in 2007 and will provide the focus for a major campaign to help raise money for critical programs.

Although the presidential selection process is strictly confidential until finalists are announced in late October, two names have surfaced.

• Provost Marshall Goodman, 46, San Jose State vice president for academic affairs, confirmed he is seeking the presidency.

• Rose Tseng, 60, a longtime San Jose State faculty member and dean who left in 1993, said she hasn't decided whether she is interested, although an acquaintance has been promoting her candidacy.

``I love San Jose and I love it here, too,'' said Tseng, president of the University of Hawaii-Hilo for the past five years and an employee of San Jose State for 23.

Other contacts

Goodman said he has been contacted by headhunters about other CSU presidencies, but the only campus he's interested in is San Jose. He's also being courted by faculty and community leaders for the presidency at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where he was dean of the College of Letters and Science and served as an adviser to the state's governor.

``I'm really dedicated to staying here,'' said Goodman, whom Caret hired two years ago. But he said he is keeping his options open.

State Sen. John Vasconcellos, a longtime Democratic legislator from Santa Clara County, has nominated a presidential candidate -- a CSU administrator from another campus. Vasconcellos said his nominee ``is the smartest person I know, has impeccable academic credentials and the capacity to inspire.'' But he wouldn't say who he is because ``I don't think it would do him or the process any good.''

An 11-member campus advisory committee will work with a committee of five CSU trustees to screen applicants. They will make their first cut Oct. 1, then winnow that group down to a handful of finalists during a marathon session in Los Angeles on Oct. 23-24. The finalists will be announced and make public visits to the campus.

CSU Chancellor Charles Reed said at the start of the search that he expects San Jose to get 70 to 100 applicants. CSU spokeswoman Colleen Bentley-Adler would not disclose the number of applications and nominations to date but said all three presidential searches taking place right now are drawing higher numbers than recent efforts. CSU is also looking for presidents for the Chico and San Marcos campuses.

The applicant pool will look a little like the one for California governor in the recall election. Some candidates will be well-qualified while others may have submitted their names on a whim, said Bill Dermody, chief of staff to the CSU chancellor. ``We are going to weed those out,'' he said.

Earlier problems

Trustees picked Caret to succeed Gail Fullerton as San Jose State's president at the end of 1994. That was more than two years after the first search for Fullerton's replacement blew up when the sole remaining candidate dropped out of what critics called ``an affirmative action and political correctness pool.''

Financier Phil Boyce, who served on the failed search's advisory committee, said he thinks the problem was not ethnic politics but that both committee members and applicants lacked a clear picture of what was required in the next president.

That is not likely to happen this time, CSU administrators said.

Crowley, the interim president, said one of the critical issues facing Caret's successor will be setting priorities and strategic planning for the campus, which serves about 30,000 students. A new president, he said, will need to look ``at how the campus is organized -- or not -- for raising private money'' and how to oversee academic technology to ensure equal access for students and faculty.

Although Crowley is getting good reviews on campus, he said he is eager to return to retirement and has no desire to become a candidate.

At the start of the search process, political science Professor Terry Christensen noted that the current campus advisory committee is less ethnically diverse than the last. Christensen, who sits on this committee and served on the last one, too, suggested that trustees appoint a Latino and an Asian member. Later, San Jose lawyer Fernando Zazueta was added to the committee.

But before Zazueta's appointment was publicized, San Jose resident Victor Garza, chairman of La Raza Roundtable for Santa Clara County, sent off a blistering e-mail accusing CSU Chancellor Charles Reed of racism. Garza, who said the chancellor ignored his first e-mail about the committee's makeup, said he was only trying to make sure someone from San Jose's large Latino community would participate in the selection process.

Procedural questions

Also at the search's first and only open meeting, advisory committee and faculty member Pamela Stacks asked that committee members be allowed to compare notes as a group after the finalists visit the campus. Reed said he would seek committee members' impressions of the finalists one-on-one, which Stacks, who served on the last advisory committee, said is different from last time.

No decision has been made yet about whether there will be final group debriefing after the campus visits, said CSU spokeswoman Bentley-Adler. She said that has not been the practice in recent searches.

Stacks, who is a chemistry professor, has since been named interim associate vice president for graduate studies and research and, as a management employee, cannot represent the faculty on the advisory committee. The Academic Senate will select a faculty member to replace her.