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UNBC to announce new president

The University of Northern British Columbia will announce its new president on Tuesday. UNBC has been looking for a replacement for the position since George Iwama announced he wasn't seeking a second term on Sept. 10, 2013.
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UNBC president George Iwama holds up the Leed platinum award received for the Bioenergy Plant in 2013.

The University of Northern British Columbia will announce its new president on Tuesday.

UNBC has been looking for a replacement for the position since George Iwama announced he wasn't seeking a second term on Sept. 10, 2013. Iwama was hired as an executive vice-president for the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University in January 2014.

The university had no official comment on the announcement. The new president will be introduced at 10:30 a.m. at the Bentley Centre.

Angela Kehler, president of the Northern Undergraduate Student Society, said her organization is excited to meet the new president.

"We don't have a lot of information on who that is yet, but we're excited to see who it is and what their ideas are for the school," she said.

Kehler said the society is interested in learning about the new president's vision for the school and how that person will involve students in that process.

Some of Iwama's accomplishments during his presidency include the development of the campus' bioenergy system, getting a tie with Harvard for a North America-wide university sustainability award, a second-place ranking in Maclean's Magazine's top primarily undergraduate universities and passing the threshold of 10,000 overall graduates.

Iwama started in 2009, succeeding Charles Jago, who returned as president of the university on an interim basis after the tenure of Don Cozzetto. Cozzetto left the university in less than two years with a half-million dollar payout.