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President Search Committee Limited to YSU Trustees
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- The search committee for a new president of Youngstown State University will consist solely of the trustees, they decided Wednesday.
Where the search committee in 2010 that chose Cynthia Anderson had 24 members and that which chose her successor, Randy J. Dunn, three years later had 18, this year’s committee will have 11 -- the nine voting trustees and the two student members.
Chairman of the search committee is the chairman of the trustees, Dr. Sudershan K. Garg, vice chairman of the committee is Vice Chairman Dr. John R. Jackubec and second vice chairman is Carole S. Weimer.
The nominating committee of the board recommended Weimer as president of the YSU trustees for the year beginning July 1 and ending June 30, 2015, attorney Leonard Schiavone as vice chairman and attorney Franklin S. Bennett as secretary.
Assuming they are elected and seated as expected at the board meeting in June, it will mark Bennett’s 25th term as secretary. Garg was president of the board three years.
Speaking to reporters afterward, Garg said the board’s decision should not offend any non-trustee left off the search committee. He also pledged that students, faculty and staff “will be given ample opportunity for input” to have their say about whom the trustees extend an offer.
“We vow to be inclusive and transparent throughout the process,” Garg said in a statement he read after trustees determined they alone would constitute the search committee, “but we also seek to be efficient and expedient to get a new president in place this summer.”
Their decision should save the university between $10,000 and $15,000 in expenses compared to the $60,000 incurred in the previous search.
The consulting firm ratified to conduct the search, AGB Search Inc. of Washington, D.C. is providing its services at no charge because its previous recommendation, Dunn, served only seven months. AGB charged $65,000 plus expenses a year ago. The firm began advertising for the position this week (CLICK HERE).
The candidates the board chooses as finalists will be invited to visit the YSU campus where students, faculty, staff and interested members of the community will have the opportunity to meet and interview them, Garg said.
The board hopes to have the next president begin no later than July 1. By the end of April, the board hopes to begin preliminary interviews with a short list of candidates, YSU said in a news release, with campus visits for final candidates by midMay. The university hopes to have a new president in place by July 1.
In the meantime, the provost of the university, Ikram Khawaja, will serve as interim president, the board ratifying its earlier decision. Khawaja will begin as interim president March 22, Dunn having agreed to end his term March 21.
Garg praised Khawaja as “a seasoned soldier at YSU,” who has retired before only to come back to serve because of unforeseen vacancies. Upon the drowning of the previous provost while on vacation, Khawaja, a retired dean, stepped in. When Dunn asked to begin his duties last July 15 instead of July 1, Khawaja served as interim president two weeks last summer.
He served at no increase in compensation, Garg noted, but Khawaja is yet to return from Pakistan to meet with trustees about a possible increase in pay.
Dunn’s early departure -- his resignation was effective Aug. 16 -- translates into a savings to the university of $275,000 to $290,000 on his salary of $375,000, Garg said.
Dunn will become president of Southern Illinois University July 1. According to a report by The Southern Illinoisan newspaper in Carbondale, Ill., Dunn's contract with SIU includes a clause that requires him to pay SIU $250,000 should he decide to leave his new post before serving three and a half years.
Garg had nothing to say in response to reporters’ questions about former YSU head football coach Jim Tressel’s candidacy as president of the university. He allowed that one candidate has applied but couldn’t say who it was because he hadn’t opened the envelope.
Copyright 2014 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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