Search ends in hiring new associate provost

Along with the new semester, January brought with it Tom Ormond, the new Associate Provost of Georgia College. Ormond began working with Provost Sandra Jordan on Jan. 3.

Ormond’s responsibilities require that he works closely with Jordan.

“My lead comes off her, that’s part of the deal. I need to be on the same page as her for it to work,” Ormond said.

Ormond

According to Jordan, Ormond’s main duties also include “providing leadership and supervision for graduate studies, providing coordination and strategic direction for institutional effectiveness processes, serving as the academic officer for academic grievances, including appeals of charges of academic dishonesty and refers cases to faculty committee on academic appeals, working with deans and directors on faculty and administrative searches, providing support and guidance to Academic Affairs directors and chairs and assisting with preparation and tracking of Academic Affairs budgets.”

“I’ll be helping oversight of graduate programs,” Ormond said. “Within that oversight is assisting faculty in operation as well as looking for ways to refine or expand those offerings.”

The search for an associate provost was held starting Dec. 2009 until May 14, 2010, when Ormond was offered the position according to Jordan.

“The finalist, Dr. Ormond, was selected and offered the position on May 14, 2010. Dr. Ormond accepted the position, but needed to conclude the work he was doing at his former institution, so his start date was Jan. 3, 2011,” Jordan said.

The process of looking for a new associate provost began with a search and screening process chaired by Mark Pelton, the associate vice president for Extended University.

“The job description was announced by the provost and then we advertised the opening in a huge number of national publications in order to attract the best candidate and to create diversity in the people applying,” Pelton said of the search.

A search committee composed of members of different faculty groups and members of the schools of the university including Kendra Russell in the College of Health Sciences and Jason Huffman in the College of Arts & Sciences.

The committee took applications and questions answered by the candidates.

“We then had phone interviews with references and a certain number of highly-qualified candidates came on campus and met with students, faculty and staff who had the opportunity to meet the candidates. The decision was ultimately Dr. Jordan’s choice, though, we were more of a screening committee,” Pelton said. “I think Dr. Ormond will do well here, we are pleased to have him.

Ormond, a native of New Zealand, came to America in 1984 to pursue graduate school. Ormond received his doctorate from The Ohio State University in teacher education in physical education with minors in applied behavior analysis and outdoor adventure education and has served as a member of the faculty at Itaca College, Sonomoa State College, and Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania before joining the Georgia College community.

Ormond claims that the liberal arts mission at Georgia College made the prospect of coming here appealing and that the civic engagement and leadership aspects of the university were attractive.

“I’ve found that its at a unique level what we try to do here—the mission here is a drive to connect things,” Ormond said.

Ormond has found a new home in the unique environment of Georgia College in the university system.

“I like being a part of an organization that has a liberal arts mentality; I want to use it as much as they are going to use me,” Ormond said.

Posted by Mandy Boddy on Feb 17 2011. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.