JONESBORO — Within a few hours of applying, Henderson State University President Charles Welch became one of three applicants chosen to be interviewed for the top job at the Arkansas State University System.
The ASU board of trustees chose Welch, along with Richard Federinko of Dadeville, Ala., a retired senior vice chancellor for student services and administration at Troy University; and William Richardson of Baton Rouge, chancellor of the LouisianaState University Agriculture Center.
The three will be interviewed for the ASU System presidency in November.
“I thought about applying early on,” Welch said Friday evening. “I received several calls of encouragement, and I came to the decision Thursday that it was the right timing for this job.”
Welch, 37, is one of the youngest university presidents or chancellors in the country, according to various higher-education organizations. He has been the presi-dent of Henderson in Arkadelphia since 2008.
The trustees are looking for someone to replace J. Leslie Wyatt, who resigned as ASU System president June 30. Wyatt is now an ASU tenured professor. The ASU System is the second-largest system with campuses in central, north and northeast Arkansas.
Shortly after the ASU trustees began meeting Friday, board chairman Florine T. Milligan of Forrest City called for a closed session, saying the board would review resumes from 20 applicants. Twentytwo people applied for the job; two withdrew.
Milligan also is chairman of the ASU System presidential search advisory committee, an 11-member group that included representatives from different ASU campuses and the city of Jonesboro.
An hour and 15 minutes later, trustees returned from the closed session and, with no discussion about applicants, voted 5-0 to invite Welch, Federinko and Richardson for interviews on Nov. 8 and 9.
Milligan said after the vote that trustees looked at applicants’ resumes and letters, and evaluated criteria for the president’s position that had been suggested during several earlier meetings with students, faculty and civic leaders at ASU’s campuses in Jonesboro, Mountain Home, Newport and Beebe, and at the ASU System’s secondary office in Little Rock.
The search advisory committee’s criteria included an experienced higher-education administrator, a good communicator who could work with the Legislature and someone who understands education trends.
“We feel like these three meet those qualities,” she said.
When the search process began, ASU System officials and Milligan pledged to conduct an open search. The system created a website that listed applications and announcements of meetings of the search advisory committee.
On Sept. 30, the committee started off a meeting with the public present. But at one point, the committee asked the public to leave. Tom Meredith, owner of Effective Leadership LLC of Flowood, Miss., who was hired as a consultant for the search, was the only person not on the committee who was allowed to stay. The participants shredded their notes before leaving the room.
Later, when Milligan invited the public back into the meeting room, she announced that the committee had invited some applicants for interviews. She refused to identify them, saying the applicants had to be contacted first.
Arkansas Code 25-19-106(c)(1) states: “Executive sessions will be permitted only for the purpose of considering employment, promotion, demotion, disciplining or resignation of any public officer or employee. The specific purpose of the executive session shall be announced in public before going into executive session.”
The search committee has no authority to hire anyone, and the Freedom of Information Act doesn’t include an exemption for such a panel to hold a closed hearing.
Later, the ASU System office released the names of two of the three applicants originally invited for interviews - Federinko and Richardson. The committee also chose a third applicant for interviewing, but never released his name. Milligan said later that the third applicant could not be reached.
On Oct. 8, Milligan announced that she had canceled those interviews.
“I believe this process will continue our goal of making the presidential search transparent and inclusive while also alleviating any concerns which may have been expressed by members of the press,” Milligan wrote in an Oct. 7 memo to the search committee, advising them of the cancellations. That memo wasn’t released until the next day.
Milligan pledged an open process again, and she said that the trustees - not the advisory committee - would select applicants for interviews.
But on Thursday, when the search committee met again, the panel closed off part of its meeting.
On Friday, Milligan did not call the three applicants “finalists” but hinted that one would become the next ASU System president.
Welch and Richardson have ASU connections.
Richardson, 65, is an ASU alumnus, receiving his bachelor’s degree in 1966 and a master’s of science degree in 1968.
Richardson is one of two finalists for the job of vice president of agriculture at the University of Arkansas System.
Welch, raised in Jonesboro, was the vice chancellor for academic affairs at ASU-Beebe from 2003-05. He later became chancellor of the University of Arkansas Community College at Hope before taking over as Henderson president in 2008.
Efforts to reach Richardson for comment Friday were unsuccessful. No one answered the phone at his LSU office.
A spokesman at Troy University said Federinko, 59, would not talk to the media until after his interview with ASU trustees Nov. 8.
Welch said Friday that he looked forward to moving back to Jonesboro - where the ASU system headquarters is located - if offered the job.
“I think my experience and my knowledge of Arkansas, the legislature and the ASU System is going to serve me well,” he said.
Welch said he was the first in his family to graduate from college.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 13 on 10/30/2010