GC presidential field narrowed

The hunt for Georgia College’s future president has been narrowed to a small group of candidates who will visit the campus in February. 

On Friday, Jan. 20 and Saturday, Jan. 21 the campus-based Presidential Search and Screen Committee flew the 10 possible candidates into Atlanta for interviews. From those interviews, they decided the group that best exemplifies Georgia College.

“We wanted to get to a manageable number to interview for the airport interviews,” Student Government Association President Evan Karanovich said. “We had around 10 applicants for face-to face-interviews and we will narrow down that group to see who will come to campus.”

The committee formed in fall and has maintained the responsibility of updating the campus about the status of the presidential search. The presidential search website has been instrumental in receiving feedback from students, faculty, staff and community members, according Ken McGill, chair of chemistry, physics and astronomy and chair of the Search and Screen Committee.

The website features a timeline of the search and also houses an online forum where campus and community members can submit questions for the presidential candidates.

“The unique questions that we got from the website that were Georgia College specific were about the liberal arts mission,” McGill said. “Because we take a lot of pride in that mission.”

Candidates were interviewed for an hour and a half and were asked a series of questions, some specific to Georgia College and others more general. The committee raised questions of applicant’s background in diversity initiatives, fundraising, class sizes and shared governance.

One of the focuses for Karanovich was to ensure that the future president present themselves as a “jack of all trades.”

“We’ve got a big problem – monetarily and fiscally we are strapped and we are having to make due while trying to maintain an university,” Karanovich said. “We need someone to come in and manage this business. While the education proponent is huge, there’s a lot of support that goes into supporting that mission.”

The committee worked in the fall with Heidrick & Struggles, the executive search committee, to work on developing an announcement, which led to a job advertisement in The Chronicle of Higher Education. It was then that the executive search committee began to headhunt around the nation for possible presidential candidates.

“This kind of position, the best person for the job isn’t necessarily the person who would apply for the job,” McGill said.

Currently, the committee is waiting on confirmation from the pool of applicants chosen from the airport interview phase. McGill predicts the group of candidates will be released in the next week, at which time they will become open to the public. Until then, the applicants will remain confidential.

“The reason everything has to be confidential is because these people are already vice presidents, presidents and they don’t want their head institution knowing they are out there applying for another position,” McGill said.

Once the candidates are announced, the itinerary will be created, dictating when each applicant will visit campus. Throughout the month of February open forums will be held in the evening, where the campus and community can ask questions and express concerns to the applicants.

Once the interviewing is complete, the committee will send a report to the Chancellor’s Special Committee, where they will then make a recommendation to the Board of Regents. If everything goes smoothly, everything should be wrapped up by the first of May, according to McGill.

For the full presidential timeline and to check for dates concerning the applicant open-forums campus and community members should visit www.gcsu.edu/presidentialsearch/index.htm.

Posted by AubrieSofala on Jan 26 2012. Filed under Lead stories, 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.