In a unanimous vote, the Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning Board of Trustees named USDA Undersecretary Mark Keenum the 19th Mississippi State University president.
IHL Board of Trustees President Amy Whitten said Keenum will assume the presidency in early January.
“There will be a transition period between now and then. We will involve him as quickly as we can,” Whitten said. “It’s a huge sacrifice on his and his family’s part to get here that soon. It will be a very wonderful homecoming for him.”
His salary will be comparable to former MSU President Robert “Doc” Foglesong’s $428,500 yearly earnings, she said.
Keenum said he and his family are very excited at the opportunity to lead his alma mater into the future.
“The emotions came out toward the end when I saw the alumni, my friends and the people that have been encouraging me throughout this process,” he said. “[Other than the day I was married and the births of my children], this is the absolute biggest day of my life.”
As the new president, Keenum said he’d like to build on the current successes of MSU.
“There are a lot of wonderful things going on at our university: record enrollment, outstanding graduation rates and we have the best and brightest students in the state, along with world-class faculty and staff members,” he said. “We want MSU to be an internationally recognized research institution of higher learning.”
After being a finalist for the MSU top job in two previous searches, Keenum said he believes the IHL Board of Trustees exercised prudent judgment in naming him the next president.
“I respect the decisions of the board in the previous searches,” he said. “I was honored to be a finalist in the previous two searches. In the end, things have turned out just fine.”
Keenum said he will make himself accessible to various campus constituency groups during his first days on the job.
“I will be going around, meeting and introducing myself to a lot of people,” he said. “It’s going to be a very busy first day.”
Keenum’s insistence on an open, accessible administration highlights a fundamental difference with the previous administration. During various Wednesday interview sessions, he said multiple times MSU will not be his “Plan B.”
After his resignation in March, Foglesong told the Charleston Daily Mail, “This [the presidency of Mississippi State] was ‘Plan 2.'”
Keenum said he had the opportunity to work with Foglesong to collect earmarks for the university.
“He was very aggressive in recruiting students, and I want to pick up that aspect where he left off. I hear that there needs to be a better line of communications and that is what I am going to work toward,” he said.
Whitten said Keenum’s naming on Wednesday shows the presidential search process was conducted correctly.
“The proof is in the pudding,” she said.
IHL Board of Trustees Vice President and Board Search Committee Chairman Scott Ross said he is very proud of the results from the presidential search process.
“We started this process here a number of months ago,” he said. “[We] promised that we’d have a search process that the board would adhere to. Today has been a very important day for MSU and the state of Mississippi.”
Student Association President and campus search advisory group member Braxton Coombs said Keenum’s passion for MSU is what set him above other presidential candidates.
“He’s going to bring the needed stability to our campus,” he said. “Keenum is willing to listen to students, alumni, faculty and staff. He’s also a person that’s going to be here for a long time. This is his dream job.”
Vice president for student affairs Bill Kibler said the crowd’s reaction during the general public and alumni meeting was a defining moment in the whole presidential search process, solidifying Keenum’s place as the next MSU president.
“As soon as I introduced Dr. Keenum and he took the podium, almost 200 people stood up and gave him a standing ovation,” he said. “That made it more real than anything I saw during the day. He is just so highly regarded; clearly this is a case of a favorite son coming back home.”