Candidates down to 3 for UALR chancellor

Coloradan, Californian, Idahoan picks

Andrew Rogerson, Ph.D., provost and vice president of academic affairs, Sonoma State (California State University System)
Andrew Rogerson, Ph.D., provost and vice president of academic affairs, Sonoma State (California State University System)

University of Arkansas System President Donald Bobbitt named three top-level higher-education administrators -- all from out of state -- as finalists in the search for a new chancellor at the Little Rock campus.

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Special to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Mark Rudin, Ph.D., vice president for research and economic development, Boise State University.

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Cheryl D. Lovell, Ph.D., special advisor to the chancellor and to the chief academic officer of the Colorado State University System.

The three are Cheryl Lovell, a special adviser to the chancellor and to the chief academic officer of the Colorado State University System; Andrew Rogerson, provost and vice president of academic affairs at Sonoma State University in California; and Mark Rudin, vice president for research and economic development at Boise State University.

Bobbitt chose the three out of 18 who applied to fill the chancellor's position at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. The group was composed of many high-level administrators, including UALR's own provost, Zulma Toro; University of Arkansas Community College at Hope Chancellor Chris Thomason; and the vice president of student affairs at the University of Central Oklahoma, Myron Pope.

Visits to UALR will be May 9-10 for Rudin, May 11-12 for Rogerson and May 12-13 for Lovell. Graduation is May 14.

"I think they are going to be thrilled by the turnout that they will observe, not just from the campus community but also from the Little Rock community," Bobbitt said Thursday. "I think they are going to fall in love with the student body. You can pick up a masterpiece that's almost finished and put a couple of dabs on it."

Or, he said, someone can start with a clean slate and have his own finished product.

"The person sees that potential at UALR and can really see what the finished product will look like," he said. "I think the person will see that they can really make a difference."

The winning candidate will replace the university's chancellor for the past 13 years, Joel Anderson. Anderson, 74, is retiring from his $219,406 a year post at the end of June.

On Thursday, Bob Denman, the chairman of the 17-member search committee helping to find Anderson's replacement, said he was impressed by the strength of each of the applicants.

"A very deep, experienced pool," he said.

When asked about the internal UA System candidates, Denman said the two interviewed "great" but there was no consensus to move forward with the two.

Of the finalists, Denman said, each had so much experience.

"It's kind of hard to separate each one of them because, in many ways, they're very similar and, in many ways, they're not," he said. "Mark Rudin brings a strong economic development background. That's what he's been doing at Boise State. Cheryl Lovell brings not just campus experience but also system experience to the table.

"And then Andrew Rogerson from Sonoma State -- just overall depth of experience. He was very presidential, just this quiet confidence. He certainly knows his business."

The committee whittled down the 18 candidates to about a dozen, all of whom they invited to the Dallas/Fort Worth-area for "conversations." After that, the group chose eight applicants for whom they wanted reference checks.

Denman has declined to reveal the names of the applicants who had been invited to Dallas.

The finalists emerged after the committee met Wednesday with the hired search firm, Greenwood/Asher & Associates, to review the reference checks. The Florida firm is receiving up to $155,000 for its services.

Rudin holds a doctorate in medicinal chemistry from Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., where he also completed his bachelor's and master's degrees. He's had stints as a senior program specialist and project engineer for EG&G Idaho Inc., which has since merged with another company and provides engineering, construction and technical services to a technical and administrative assistant in an office within the U.S. Department of Energy, according to his resume.

In 1993, Rudin joined the University of Nevada-Las Vegas as the department chairman for the the health physics department. After about a decade, he got his first taste in higher-education administration as an associate vice president for research services at the same university. For the next three years, he floated around the Research and Graduate Studies Division, at one point serving as interim vice president for research and graduate dean for about six months.

He has worked at Boise State in Idaho since 2007. In his tenure there, Rudin is on the president's leadership team and serves as the point man for local, state and federal government and economic agencies, his resume shows.

Rudin also established a center for the Latino community to help with recruitment and retention matters and further research opportunities for those students. Last year, he negotiated an educational and research agreement between Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique and the Idaho school.

Ramping up the research enterprise, he said in his cover letter, will increase the revenue stream, capitalize on public-private partnerships and address other challenges in the region and state, including the economy.

Rogerson has bachelor's and doctorate degrees abroad, the doctorate being in protozoan ecology.

The Scotland native has worked at eight universities and two internationally known government research laboratories, according to his cover letter. In total, he has 30 years of administrative, teaching and research experience.

His first stint in administration was in 1993 when he taught and became director of the graduate program at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. In 2006, Rogerson was named the College of Science dean at Marshall University in Huntington, W.Va. Two years later, he moved to a similar position at California State University in Fresno, Calif.

In his cover letter, Rogerson said the perfect storm is brewing in higher education with declining state support, increasing tuition, increasing student debt and high unemployment among graduates.

"This is the new normal in education, and the challenges it presents, is what excites me," he wrote. "Rather than be daunted by the approaching storm, I want to be the innovative visionary leader that can see this as a time of opportunity."

For the past eight years, he said, the California State System has focused on graduating students and making higher education accessible, affordable and of good quality. At his current university, Rogerson said, leaders recently renewed its emphasis on students' community engagement.

He said he increased enrollment by at least 1,000 during the last three years and managed the budgets for Academic and Student Affairs, winding up in good standing despite declining funds.

Lovell started out studying political science and pre-law, earning those degrees from the University of West Georgia in Carrollton. She later specialized in higher education, getting a doctorate in the field from Florida State University in Tallahassee, Fla.

She had a two-year stint starting in 1984 at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville's Student Affairs Division. There, she served as an area director and coordinator of family life and conferences, supervising hall and apartment managers and was in charge of conference housing.

Lovell has served as chief academic officer for the Colorado Department of Higher Education, where she worked on developing and implementing policies and strategies to increase enrollment and student success. In that role, she also led collaboration with the K-12 education system in the state and developed, implemented and monitored accountability standards for Colorado's colleges and universities.

According to her resume, she held that position for about a year and half, but it was eliminated in 2011 after a new governor appointed a new Higher Education Department leader. She returned to teaching at the University of Denver for a stretch of time.

In December 2012, Lovell began serving as president and chief executive officer of Rocky Vista University in Parker, Colo., where, among other things, she put together "key performance indicators" and showed to the school's board the university's outcomes based on those measures. She also led the university's strategic planning that included expanding programs and adding a campus in another state.

That contract was only for three years, but Lovell stayed on longer to help the next president move into that role.

"I have gained greatly as a campus President and it allowed me to learn more about different postsecondary fiscal structures, non-traditional educational providers, and the importance of having the university embedded with the regional communities it served," she wrote in her cover letter.

From there, she moved on to become a special adviser to the chancellor and to the chief academic officer for the Colorado State University System. In that post, which lasts until June, Lovell looks to maximize future systemwide collaborations in the areas of academic programs, enrollment, faculty development and operational efficiencies.

After the on-campus interviews, Bobbitt will make a recommendation, and the UA System board will decide on the hire.

The winning candidate will enter the university after 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.

A few years back, the campus embarked on a strategic planning process, and it has been moving along with that plan, said Andrew Wright, president of the university's faculty senate and a member of the search committee.

"I think we're looking to continue to see the university improve in its quality and its diversity," he said. "We're definitely looking to continue to serve the people of central Arkansas and the metropolitan city around it. That's what we've been doing, but we want to continue to do it better and better each year."

A Section on 04/29/2016

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