VALLEY CITY (AP) - The mother of a slain college student's boyfriend says state higher education officials disregarded a community's worries when they opted to forego FBI background checks on Valley City State University president candidates.

Bonnie Ranum, whose son dated Mindy Morgenstern, who was killed in September 2006, said president candidates should not be exempt from the fingerprint-based checks.

The state Board of Higher Education earlier this month rejected a recommendation to require the FBI check for the finalists to replace retiring Valley City State President Ellen Chaffee. Officials said presidential candidates already undergo criminal history checks based on name, birth date and Social Security number, along with credit checks, and degree and employment verifications.

University system attorney Pat Seaworth also said that the risk is small that a candidate for a college or university presidency would have a dangerous background.

Morgenstern was killed by Moe Gibbs, who had worked as a campus security guard and Barnes County jailer.

School officials said after Gibbs was arrested that a background check on him came up clean when he applied for work. An FBI background check was not conducted on Gibbs when he was hired as a jailer. Officials discovered later that he had changed his name from Glen Dale Morgan Jr.

"If a Mr. Gibbs can slip through, anybody can slip through at any level," Ranum said. "I don't think people at other levels should be exempt."

Larry Robinson, a member of the presidential search committee and a state legislator, said he also was disappointed the Higher Education board rejected the committee's request to do FBI checks.

"When you start going down that road of making exceptions, where do you stop?" he said.

The Board of Higher Education is to interview VCSU president finalists Blake Faulkner and Steven Shirley today and then make a decision on the next president.

Seaworth said the board has conducted more thorough background checks on Faulkner and Shirley than were conducted for Gibbs.

A private firm checked for criminal history in all 50 states going back 15 years. The firm also verified the finalists' degrees and employment history and did a credit history check, Seaworth said.

Most higher education systems check criminal history only in states where finalists lived or worked and only check seven to 10 years, he said.

"We have done a thorough, complete background investigation for these candidates," he said. "If we discovered anything that was concerning in those reports, we would have dug even deeper."

Faulkner is president of the online campus and system vice president for international affairs at National American University in Rapid City, S.D.

Shirley is vice president and dean for student affairs at Dakota State University in Madison, S.D.