“I think it was a good start. It gave everybody a chance to reaffirm what we’re looking for.” That’s what Tom Layzell, Commissioner of the State of Mississippi’s Board of Trustees of State Institutions of Higher Learning (IHL), said about a Wednesday afternoon meeting on the Mississippi State University campus.
The meeting was the official starting point for the second search for a new president at MSU. It was a joint meeting of the IHL board, the IHL board’s presidential search committee and the MSU campus advisory search committee.
Layzell said the problems with the first search should not plague this search. “In the last search, Frances (Coleman) was only able to give us a summary of what the local committee wanted. We will have much better communication this time,” he said.
Coleman is the dean of MSU libraries and the chair of the campus advisory search committee.
“This was a very positive, open discussion,” Layzell said. “I think it will lead to a very successful search.”
The meeting went into closed session immediately after being called to order, making it closed to the public and the couple of reporters in attendance. One item handled by committee members during the two-hour session was a questionnaire used to establish what the group wants in the next MSU president.
The questionnaire asked committee members to identify the university’s “three primary challenges over the next three to five years” and its greatest opportunities. Participants were also asked “what are the most important skills in an incoming president to address those challenges” and “what skills are most important in seizing those opportunities.”
Although he refused to comment on what happened during the meeting, Starkville Mayor Mack Rutledge, a member of the campus advisory search committee, said it was all positive. “I think we’ve made a great start andwe’re on the right track to selecting a fine person to lead this institution.”
Student Association President Parker Wiseman, also a member of the campus advisory search committee, was brief with his thoughts on the meeting. He called it a “great first step” and said that a time line had been established.
Commissioner Layzell was much more specific on that time line. “We will advertise the position beginning in January,” Layzell said. “We hope to have the position filled in the summer…at the latest.”
These are the names for the MSU president job: Mark Kennum, chief of staff to Sen. Thad Cochran; New Mexico State University President Jay Gogue; Paul Gaffney II, president of National Defense University, and Mike Martin, vice president of agriculture at the University of Florida.
“This is a good, very attractive institution. If you can get’em here, you’ll keep ’em here,” Layzell said.

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Grant Holzhauer

Jay Gogue