The chancellor search committee helping to find the next leader of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock plans to meet in the Dallas-Fort Worth area this weekend with applicants and potential candidates.
The 17-member search committee will have "conversations" -- not formal interviews -- with about a dozen people at a Dallas-Fort Worth airport hotel, University of Arkansas System spokesman Nate Hinkel said. The committee hopes to whittle the candidate list so a hired executive search firm, Greenwood/Asher & Associates, can begin background checks, committee leader Bob Denman said.
"It's a national search, and as you can tell, Dallas is centrally located," he said. "There are frequent connections in and out of Dallas that we just can't do in Little Rock. What would take us two days in Dallas would take weeks in Little Rock."
The meetings are the next step for the committee searching for Joel Anderson's replacement. Anderson, 74, is stepping down from his $219,406 a year post at the end of June after serving at the helm of the university for the past 13 years.
The search firm used a similar process in a search for a chancellor for the UA System's flagship in Fayetteville. Using the same Miramar Beach, Fla.-based firm, the total search cost was $121,844.81, with a flat $90,000 fee for consultants and the remainder in expenses, the system has said.
Committee travel will be reimbursed by UALR and is expected to cost up to $700 per person, Hinkel said. The search firm picks up the tab for applicants and potential candidates, he added.
Still, the committee hopes to get finalists to visit the 11,924-student university before commencement May 14, Denman said. After June 1, candidates will not get to see the campus in full swing, he said.
"It really isn't fair to the candidate not to see the campus operate with faculty, staff and students," he said.
So far, 17 people have applied, including UALR's current provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs, Zulma Toro.
According to a list compiled by Greenwood/Asher and provided by the UA System, those are:
• Ali Cyrus Banan, who is listed as executive vice president of education, research and medical affairs for the University of Windsor. A representative for the Windsor University School of Medicine in Saint Kitts and Nevis said Banan was an academic dean but no longer works there.
• Curtis Barnabas Charles, a principal at Mulsanne Management, Ltd., a business strategy, transformation and technology consulting firm in Ohio.
• Glen Hahn Cope, provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs at the University of Missouri in St. Louis.
• Ronald Elsenbaumer, senior adviser to the president for entrepreneurship and economic development at the University of Texas at Arlington.
• Thomas Elzey, former president of South Carolina State University, a historically black university in Orangeburg, S.C.
• Paul Wesley Ferguson, former president of Ball State University in Muncie, Ind.
• William Flores, a research fellow in the Institute for Educational Policy Research and Evaluation in the College of Education at the University of Houston and former president of the University of Houston-Downtown.
• Timothy Greene, provost and vice president for academic affairs at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Mich.
• Cheryl Lovell, who is listed as a special adviser to the chancellor and to the chief academic officer at the Colorado State University System.
• Christopher Maples, president of the Oregon Institute of Technology in Klamath Falls, Ore.
• James Payne, dean and professor of economics at the J. Whitney Bunting College of Business at Georgia College & State University in Milledgeville, Ga.
• Andrew Rogerson, provost and vice president for academic affairs at Sonoma State University in Rohnert Park, Calif.
• Mark Rudin, vice president for research and economic development at Boise State University in Idaho.
• Michael Sherman, vice president of innovation and economic development at the University of Akron in Ohio.
• Chris Thomason, chancellor of the University of Arkansas Community College at Hope.
• Toro.
• Walter Wendler, director of the School of Architecture at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, where he also served as chancellor.
Denman said the search firm and the committee were pleased with the pool so far.
The applicants include ousted college and university leaders.
Elzey was fired from South Carolina State after less than two years at the college, which had its accreditation on the line and massive debt, media reports show. Ferguson surprised the campus and community with his resignation after less than two years there, reports show.
"Anybody on this list is considered equally," Hinkel said.
Greenwood/Asher continues to recruit and evaluate potential candidates, and nominations are still open.
"Certainly, we're not anywhere near a decision on what a final small grouping will look like," Denman said.
The winning candidate will inherit the university's goal to become one of the top metropolitan, community-engaged, research higher education institutions among the 16 member states of the Southern Regional Education Board by 2020. The group includes Florida International University, Texas Tech University and the University of Memphis.
Part of reaching that goal includes building partnerships in the community and region, Denman said.
That person also will be in charge of recruitment and retention plans for the university. UA System President Donald Bobbitt has said all of the system's schools need to improve their student retention and graduation rates.
UALR has recently come out of a restructuring period that included some $2.4 million in cuts to its five colleges and nonacademic units. Last fall, the school increased its enrollment, breaking its four-year downward trend while leaving tuition flat.
"UALR has made tremendous progress during the past two decades through its efforts to educate a diverse student body, foster a viable research portfolio and serve as a public service resource for the capital city," Bobbitt said. "We are looking for a leader who can build on this progress and see the university for the unique opportunity it presents as a metropolitan campus looking to realize its full potential.
"Higher education is undergoing a time of significant change across the country, and the next chancellor at UALR will need to set a vision and direction for how the institution adapts and thrives in the decades to come."
Metro on 04/13/2016