A longtime Mississippi business and higher education leader will assume temporary leadership of Henderson State University after the Arkansas Legislative Council’s approval of his contract Friday.
Jim Borsig will assume the role of interim chancellor Monday.
The Arkansas Legislative Council approved his contract without comment Friday. He replaces Elaine Kneebone, the university’s general counsel who has served as acting president since July 2019.
Former President Glen Jones Jr. resigned last July after trustees learned of a multi-million-dollar deficit only weeks after approving a budget increase.
Borsig has worked in municipal government and consulting, in addition to serving as associate commissioner of higher education in Mississippi from 2007 to 2012 and as president of the Mississippi University for Women from 2012 to 2018. That university has been co-educational for almost 40 years.
Borsig's contract is for one year with an option for a second, and he’ll earn $230,000 annually.
In a message to the Henderson State campus earlier this month, Arkansas State University System President Chuck Welch said Borsig has been praised for his “leadership skills, communication abilities, and approachability.”
“I was told how he arrived at [the Mississippi University for Women] during a time of significant internal discord, financial challenges, and divisions regarding the future of the institution,” Welch wrote. “I was consistently told that he managed to resolve all of these issues, increase enrollment, streamline university operations, and set the university on a much stronger course. One reference even stated, ‘I would advise you to get in the car right now, drive to wherever Jim Borsig is, and get him to sign on the dotted line immediately.’”
Henderson State University is in the process of becoming the seventh member institution of the ASU System.
Information for this article was contributed by Michael R. Wickline of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.