SAU panel to find top job applicants

Trustees hopes to choose by January

Southern Arkansas University trustees have assembled a committee that will search for a successor to President David Rankin, who will retire in June 2015 after 13 years at the helm.

SAU trustees chose the members of the 12-person committee, which includes nine faculty members and representatives from the board of trustees, the SAU Foundation and the SAU Alumni Association.

"We tried to do it to cover as many of the academic and administrative bodies that we could," said Bill Stringfellow, chairman of both the board of trustees and the hiring committee.

The group will start meeting in early July and hopes to make recommendations to trustees in January, Stringfellow said.

"The search committee, of course, is primarily charged with screening the applicants and eventually recommending three or four, maybe even five, of the applicants to the board of trustees," he said. "The board will decide which ones they would interview."

Stringfellow said that if the board members are not happy with the committee's recommendations, they can ask for other applicants.

The committee will probably conduct the search without the help of a search firm. Stringfellow said hiring a search firm would be costly.

"We don't have any plans to engage a consultant, so we should not have a great cost for the search process," he said, estimating that the process will not be more than $10,000.

Getting the word out about the position will fall on Roger Giles, vice president for administration at SAU.

"After the board approves a position description, we will put it on the website and in national higher-ed publications," Giles said.

As people apply for the position, Giles will submit their applications to the hiring committee. The hiring committee will sort through the applicants and present recommendations to the board of trustees, which will have the final say on who gets chosen for the position.

"The process will be a very thorough one, and we'll be looking to make sure we have someone that we believe can be there for a fairly long term," Stringfellow said.

The position pays a maximum annual public salary of $196,974 for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2015, according to Act 253 of the 2014 fiscal legislative session. But the 3,404-student university might be able to pay more.

Arkansas Code 6-63-309 allows public universities to pay specified employees up to 25 percent above the state-set maximum from public funds. Public salaries are often supplemented with private funding for top administrators and research faculty.

Rankin, who earns $199,875 per year, has been president of the university for 12 years. He said he hopes his successor shares his passion for SAU.

"I would love to see someone who understands and appreciates the uniqueness of this university and wants to dedicate themselves to seeing the university continue to move forward," he said.

Rankin, 72, was a member of SAU's faculty for decades before becoming president in January 2002. He was hired by the university in 1968 as an assistant professor of business and has served in many different capacities, including dean of the School of Business Administration and chairman of the Department of Economics and Finance.

Stringfellow said choosing someone to replace Rankin will be difficult.

"When he took over, we had not had a new building on the SAU campus in 25 years," he said. "Dr. Rankin has just guided us along in those 12 years, all those new facilities."

Trustees hope to choose Rankin's successor in January 2015.

"Of course, if we have someone that really rings the bell, we wouldn't necessarily wait until January," Stringfellow said. "We would like to have someone in place for a few months before Dr. Rankin actually retires."

Metro on 06/08/2014

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