LITTLE ROCK — The Arkansas State University board of trustees on Friday will vote to hire a search firm and appoint an 11-member committee to oversee the selection of a new system president.
Former President Les Wyatt resigned effective June 30. Interim President Robert Potts will hold the position until the board can appoint a permanent replacement.
A resolution for the Little Rock meeting calls for Tom Meredith, an independent search consultant and former Mississippi highereducation commissioner, to assist with the search.
The Arkansas State System, the second-largest in the state, includes a fouryear university in Jonesboro; community colleges in Beebe, Mountain Home and Newport; degree centers in Heber Springs and Searcy; and “instructional sites” in Paragould and at Little Rock Air Force Base in Jacksonville. Its systemwide enrollment is more than 20,000 students.
“Given the extraordinary progress made by the System under the leadership of Dr. Les Wyatt, it is critical to find the very best person available to maintain the momentum,” Meredith wrote in a proposal.
The proposal includes plans for Meredith to be involved in the search from the beginning and the creation of a formal transition plan after a new leader is appointed.
The search will cost $45,000 plus expenses, the proposal said. A resolution up for approval at Friday’s meeting calls for the expenses to be paid by the privately funded ASU Foundation.
System counsel Lucinda McDaniel said board Chairman Florine Milligan of Forrest City recommended Meredith and his firm, Effective Leadership LLC, after screening proposals from several search firms.
McDaniel did not have names of other finalists. Milligan did not return voicemail messages left on her home phone and mobile phone Tuesday.
The University of Ar-kansas System is also working with a search firm to find a new president.
“I think we’ll have a big pool because both of our institutions are going to be trying to draw people to Arkansas at the same time,” McDaniel said.
Meredith retired in 2008 as Mississippi’s higher-education commissioner, overseeing eight public universities in the state, after allegations that he had landscaping work done at his private home at taxpayers’ expense, according to an Oct. 23, 2008, article in The Clarion-Ledger newspaper in Jackson, Miss.
A state auditor’s report showed that interim Mississippi State University President Vance Watson authorized the planting of 13 magnolia trees outside Meredith’s residence in 2007, the article said. Watson later repaid $12,333 for the landscaping and investigation and resigned.
Before his work in Mississippi, Meredith was chancellor for the University System of Georgia.
The ASU board will also vote Friday to create an 11-member search advisory committee to set priorities for the search and to interview candidates.
Milligan will select the committee members, who are expected to be ASU employees, alumni and supporters, McDaniel said.
Academic Search Consultation Service, hired to conduct ASU’s chancellor search in 2006, withdrew from that search after learning that names of candidates would be released under the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act.
McDaniel did not expect similar difficulties with the presidential search this time.
“We have made it absolutely clear that any applicant for this position, once they submit their documentation, it will become a public record,” she said.
Meredith’s proposal calls for the selection of a new president by the end of the calendar year.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 9 on 07/28/2010