ASU chancellor search gears up

The applicant list for Arkansas State University’s chancellor position now has nearly 50 names, including an internal candidate and another two currently in Arkansas.

Now, the applications are in the hands of Arkansas State University System President Chuck Welch and his 21-member-appointed search committee. The group will meet in a closed session at 3 p.m. Monday in its first meeting since the April 17 priority deadline, said Jeff Hankins, the system’s vice president for strategic communications and economic development.

The committee will begin considering the 47 who applied before the priority deadline and another two who submitted applications later in the week. Panel members likely will start paring the 49 to a more manageable list, said Mike McDaniel, ASU’s faculty senate president, communication disorders professor and a search committee member.

“I don’t think we’ll be doing much interviewing Monday,” he said. “The timeline is getting short. I suspect [the] week will be real active.”

Welch, who was not made available by Hankins for an interview, has said that he would like to have the finalists visit the 14,085-student campus in early May and have the new chancellor start by July. Welch will select the next chancellor, who then will have to be approved by the board of trustees. The Jonesboro campus is holding its commencement May 13.

The new leader will arrive as Arkansas’ colleges and universities prepare for a change in state funding that will be based less on enrollment and more on student success. The new funding model, which starts July 1, 2018, will reward the state’s public higher-education institutions whose students progress to graduation.

The chosen candidate also will take on the task of devising a new strategic plan for the Jonesboro school, the state’s second-largest, Welch has said.

The ASU System’s administration is “very pleased” with the pool of applicants, Hankins said.

McDaniel said he has started a spreadsheet to help him compare the candidates’ experiences with the job requirements listed in the advertisement. The position announcement includes responsibilities such as collaborating among campus constituencies; fostering a culture of academic research, discovery and innovation; running an efficient university and seeking innovative opportunities to earn revenue for the university.

Meetings of the search committee, an advisory body, will not be public under Attorney General’s Opinion 2014-124, Hankins said. The opinion, which is nonbinding, states that an advisory body’s records are subject to the Freedom of Information Act, but its meetings are not.

The incoming chancellor will replace Doug Whitlock, an appointed interim who came out of retirement to fill the post Sept. 1 after the university’s former leader left without a severance package. There are 49 applicants so far vying to be the next chancellor at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro. They are:

■ Ali Cyrus Banan, who said in his application that he is an executive vice president of education, research and medical affairs for the University of Windsor. A representative for the Windsor University School of Medicine in St. Kitts and Nevis said that last year Banan was an academic dean but that he no longer works there.

■ Gavin Hamms, director of student financial aid at Grambling State University in Louisiana.

■ Ray McDonald, division chairman of business and social sciences at Texas College in Tyler.

■ William Gissy, who said he is on the faculty at Georgia State University-Perimeter College, but was not listed on the school’s directory. He is also the former vice president for research, international and strategic affairs at KIMEP University in Kazakhstan.

■ Anthony Munroe, a sociology professor at DePaul University in Chicago and a former president of Malcolm X College, part of City Colleges of Chicago.

■ Dr. Pui-Man Paul Low, professor of pulmonary and geriatrics/gerontology at the University of Mississippi Medical Center and associate chief of staff at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Jackson, Miss.

■ Cemal Basaran, professor and director of the Electronic Packaging Laboratory at the University at Buffalo, a part of the State University of New York, and a former founding provost of the University of Tabuk System in Saudi Arabia.

■ David Bejou, dean of the College of Business and Social Sciences and tenured professor at West Virginia State University and former vice provost at Virginia State University.

■ Doajo Hicks, general counsel and chief diversity officer at Dixie State University in St. George, Utah.

■ Fawad Shah, president and CEO of the Minnesota Crop Improvement Association and an adjunct associate professor in the department of agronomy and plant genetics at the University of Minnesota in St. Paul.

■ Roger Achkar, former professor of international relations at the Universities in Lebanon.

■ Anthony Koyzis, director of academic programs at the University of Nicosia Global in Cyprus.

■ Soren Kirchner, CEO of American Global Management Association, a membership organization company.