Lyon College taps King, 46, as next leader

Texas native has experience in tech fields, private college

Lyon College, a private liberal arts school in Batesville, has hired a new president, the college announced Monday.

W. Joseph "Joey" King, 46, will become the college's 19th president starting July 1. He is succeeding Donald Weatherman, who is retiring at the end of this academic year after leading the college since 2009.

King said he was "honored and humbled" to be the next president of the 681-student college.

"I was very, very excited," he said about getting the call. "There was never a question in my mind that I wanted to do it. I am interested in private liberal arts education in general."

A lot of liberal arts colleges "are not healthy -- either financially or with their strategy and outlook to the future. With Lyon, they've had difficult financial times, but they're in a good position now," he said. "They are very much wanting to look forward and be progressive."

His hire ends a nearly four-month search for the president's post, said Phil Baldwin, who was the chairman of the search committee. The committee hired Washington, D.C.-based firm Academic Search, in part because of senior consultant and former Hendrix College President Ann Die-Hasselmo, he said.

The search brought in about 100 applicants, and the list was whittled down to 12 applicants who interviewed in Little Rock. The committee selected four finalists and recommended King to the college's board of trustees.

The 32-member board unanimously hired King on Thursday, and he met with campus constituents Friday, said Perry Wilson, the board chairman and managing member of the Barber Law Firm in Little Rock.

"Our goal was to find an innovative person who could take Lyon College and its liberal arts mission to the next level," Wilson said. "He checked all the boxes."

King's diverse experiences -- he started up two technology-based companies -- and his passion for liberal arts education were draws for the search committee, Baldwin said. King, who was the first in his family to go to college, can relate to the changing demographic of colleges and universities, too, he said.

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An Aledo, Texas, native, King is arriving from Emory & Henry College, a private liberal arts college in Emory, Va., where he works as a senior adviser to the president. He is also leading the National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education, which helps nearly 140 liberal arts colleges integrate inquiry, pedagogy and technology.

He holds a bachelor's degree in computer science and experimental psychology from Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, and a doctorate in human-computer interaction from the University of Washington.

He has worked as a research scientist at two laboratories and as a consultant to companies, including Microsoft, Walt Disney Imagineering and Atari Games.

King is also co-writing a book with Brian Mitchell, the former president of Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pa., through the Johns Hopkins University Press. The working title is How to Run a College.

He is entering the presidency as private liberal arts colleges around the country have been struggling financially. Last year, Sweet Briar College, a small women's college in Virginia, announced it would close because of "insurmountable financial challenges. The liberal arts college reversed course after it released $16 million from its endowment for operations and after alumni agreed to raise $12 million.

The fiscal problems of private liberal arts colleges, King said, spring from an "irrational exuberance" in the 1990s -- an at-the-time seemingly endless enrollment with good returns. But after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the recession, the returns have been flat to negative, he said. In some areas, like the Northeast, the demographics are shifting with fewer high school graduates, he said, so many are recruiting in places such as Texas and California.

As he understands it, King said, Lyon had carried a structural deficit, spending more than what it was taking in. Under Weatherman, the college is now "at minimum" stable but "more optimistically" has a positive outlook going forward, King said, adding that Emory & Henry had a structural deficit for at least 15 years before eliminating it this year.

He will also arrive on the campus as constituents look to take Lyon to the next level, Wilson has said. In the past few years, the college has worked to increase its enrollment from 593 students in fall 2012, he said. Stakeholders want to continue that trend but also place the college on the map nationwide.

"One of the things Lyon wants to do is brand itself on a national level, show the rest of the world what is unique about Lyon College," Wilson said, pointing out the school's large first-generation student population, its Scottish heritage and its affiliation with the Presbyterian Church. "One thing I've said to people about Lyon is that the hardest part is getting students to come to Batesville, Arkansas."

Once students get on campus, Wilson said, they love it.

"Kids who start college next year, the jobs they are going to have when they graduate from college may not exist today," he added. "We're not training them to go to one isolated job. We're training them to go change the world."

King plans to make several trips to the campus to get to know everyone before he starts in July.

"I think my plan, such as it is, is to start off with the comprehensive strategic planning process so that we can agree on two or three very focused goals," he said, adding he was encouraged by Wilson. "Neither of us are interested in the status quo or barely moving the needle. It's not to steady the ship and let it sail for five years. It's let's make a substantial impact on the future by taking the situation we have now and move it to a future that's much better."

King, his wife, Leigh, and their 13-year-old daughter, Maddie, will move to Batesville. The couple also have a 20-year-old son, Harris.

A private college does not have to disclose salary information. Weatherman, the outgoing president, earned $258,568 in total compensation in 2014, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education.

A Section on 12/06/2016

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