LITTLE ROCK — Trustees of the state’s second largest community college have found a new leader.
The board of trustees for Northwest Arkansas Community College decided Monday to negotiate a contract with Evelyn Jorgenson, president of Moberly Area Community College in Moberly, Mo., which is about 30 miles south of Columbia, Mo.
The eight-member board chose Jorgenson after she and three other finalists met with board members, toured the campus and met with faculty members, students and community leaders in a series of forums earlier this semester.
“I am very humbled and very pleased by the fact that Northwest Arkansas Community College has chosen me to be the next president,” Jorgenson said. “My husband and I are really looking forward to being a part of the B entonville area and the community. We look forward to getting to know all of the faculty, staff and students atNWACC.”
Details of the contract and Jorgenson’s proposed salary package were not available Monday evening.
The maximum public salary for the community college president’s position is $141,461 for the current academic year, according to Act 232 of 2012. The Legislature will set new maximum salaries that would take effect with a new fiscal year that begins July 1.
Also, state law allows colleges and universities to increase maximum salaries up to 25 percent for up to 10 percent of their employees.
And colleges and universities often use privately raised money to increase public salaries.
Northwest Arkansas Community College is the secondlargest two-year school in the state with 8,338 students, according to the Arkansas Department of Higher Education. Officials created the college in 1989 with help from voters who passed a 3-mill increase to their overall property taxes in Rogers and Bentonville.
Jorgenson replaces Becky Paneitz, who has served as Northwest Arkansas Community College’s president since 2003. In April, she announced plans to leave the position effective June 30, 2013.
“I am confident that Dr. Jorgenson is a great fit for the college and community, and she will lead the college forward in exciting ways,” said Alex Vasquez, chairman ofthe college’s board, in a statement released by the college Monday evening.
Board members and a presidential search committee worked with the Association of Community College Trustees to conduct a national search for the school’s new leader, said Steven Hinds, executive director of public relations and marketing for the college.
The search committee chose six semifinalists during the search, Hinds said. After interviewing each, the committee recommended four finalists in October. In addition to Jorgenson, they were:
Jo Blondin, chancellor of the Arkansas Tech University-Ozark campus.
Anthony “Tony” Kinkel, president of Wichita Area Technical College in Wichita, Kan.
Carol Spencer, executive director of the Academic Program Articulation Steering Committee in Arizona.
College officials said they expect Jorgenson to begin working at the college July 1.
Jorgenson earned her master’s and doctorate degrees in higher and adult education at the University of Missouri in Columbia.
She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Columbia College in Columbia, Mo., and an Associate of Artsdegree from State Fair Community College in Sedalia, Mo.
She taught adult basic education at Moberly Area Community College in 1986 and later became the director of the program there. She was the first director of personnel at Moberly Area Community College and served as the assistant to the president. In 1995, she was promoted to vice president and became the president of the college a year later.
Jorgenson also served as the director of the Missouri State Resource Center for Adult Basic Education in Columbia, Mo.
Information for this article was contributed by Teresa Moss of The Benton County Daily Record.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 9 on 11/13/2012