The committee that will search for a new president for MSU has begun its search, starting with building a profile of qualities desirable in the president. No specific nominees or applicants have been named, though many people are discussing possible candidates.
The process will begin with a campus screening committee, which will narrow the list of applicants, nominees, and anyone recruited to apply for the job to about five names.
These names will then be submitted to College Board commissioner Thomas Meredith, and then the board search committee will make a final decision, Meredith said.
“We will be on campus next Wednesday to spend the day listening to people about what they want in a president,” he said.
Meredith said the committee hopes to select a president by April. The main question to be answered during the search process is: which person will serve MSU and the state best?
Several names have been mentioned for nomination. Among them, Mark Keenum, chief of staff to U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran; Jim Newsome, president of the New York Mercantile exchange; and Marty Fuller, vice president for research and director of federal relations at MSU. All these people have close ties to university, director of the Stennis institute for government Marty Wiseman said.
“Mark Keenum was prominently mentioned four years ago,” Wiseman said. “[Newsome] would have a very keen world view of agricultural markets.”
Universities across the country are looking for presidents outside the academic realm; some universities are focusing largely on prominent figures in the public policy world, Wiseman said.
“[Louisiana State University] hired the outgoing head of the National Aeronautical and Space Administration in Washington,” Wiseman said.
Sometimes, a university may want someone on the outside to bring new ideas to the table, but others may want someone with close ties who knows the inside. For example, Robert Kayat, the chancellor at the University of Mississippi, had close ties there and brought the university together when he came in, Wiseman said.
The university is in the top 100 as far as research is concerned, and this will draw many qualified candidates who are related to the university and who have no ties, MSU vice president for finance and administration Ray Hayes said.
“Personally, we want someone to continue the vision that Dr. Lee has had over the past few years,” Hayes said.
Associate provost Jerry Gilbert said the university needs someone who understands how to manage a quality undergraduate program as well as continue research and development.
“We need someone with the experience of higher education to come in and continue the progress that Dr. Lee has made in advancing the university,” Gilbert said.