ASU search pares list to 3 finalists for top job
Jonesboro campus visits start next week
Arkansas State University System President Chuck Welch named three finalists on Thursday vying to be the next leader of the system’s Jonesboro campus.
Welch, with the help of an appointed 21-member search committee, pared down a list of 52 candidates to the three during a meeting Wednesday and on Thursday began sorting out schedules for visits to Arkansas State University. The finalists are: Kelly Damphousse, 54, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Oklahoma in Norman.
Ronald Elsenbaumer, 65, interim provost and vice president for academic affairs at the University of Texas at Arlington.
Alan Shao, 57, dean of the School of Business at The College of Charleston in South Carolina.
Shao will visit the state’s second-largest public university Wednesday and Thursday, Elsenbaumer on May 9-10 and Damphousse on May 10-11. The visits will include formal interviews and informal sessions with faculty and staff members, students and the community, and all can submit feedback on the finalists to the search committee, according to the university system office.
The committee then will meet after the last round of interviews and give more feedback to Welch, who will recommend to the system’s board of trustees the hiring of the winning candidate. Welch said he hopes to have a new chancellor in place by
July 1.
The winning candidate would take charge of the campus’s nearly 1,600 full-time employees and would manage an annual $201.3 million budget, with less than a third coming from state appropriations.
He would arrive as the state is changing its way of funding public colleges and universities, moving away from a method based mostly on enrollment to one based on student success. The new chancellor also will be responsible for creating a strategic plan and a long-term vision — with stated goals — for the 14,085-student university.
Welch said Thursday that he was pleased with the level of interest in the position and the quality of the applicant pool. He had talked with campus constituencies, but it all boiled down to one question, he said.
“Who is that person who is going to help us take that leap to the next level,” he asked. “I think the thing about each one of the three is they just bring experience from an institution that is already doing projects and initiatives that we aspire to do or at a level of research or academics that we aspire to be. They all fit that sort of profile.”
None of the three has led a university, but Welch said that was not a concern.
“That wasn’t something that was an absolute requirement,” he said. “It was more about types of experiences.”
He added that deans and provosts at large higher-education institutions perform similar functions as those of a chancellor.
Of the three, two of the finalists — Shao and Damphousse — submitted applications after April 17, which the search committee had set as a “priority deadline.” In both cases, Welch said, he had received nominations or recommendations for the two late in the game and that the two were interested when he reached out to them.
Each of the candidates holds a doctorate: Shao in marketing from the University of Alabama; Elsenbaumer in chemistry from Stanford University; and Damphousse in sociology from Texas A&M University.
Shao of Norfolk, Va., has worked at the public liberal arts and sciences university in South Carolina as dean since March 2009, started a “self-supporting, full-time” master’s degree program in business administration at the university and has held a distinguished-professor position for two years, ending in October 2011, according to his resume.
He also has taught at other universities, including the University of North Carolina — where he also served as director of international business programs from January 1998 to May 2005 — and the University of South Florida.
Elsenbaumer has worked with University of Texas-Arlington since 1991, working his way up the ranks from faculty member to his current role. He had served as an interim provost previously from September 2007 to July 2008 and also has worked as provost — in a permanent role — from October 2011 to Dec. 31, 2015, according to his resume. Most recently, he was a senior adviser to the university president for entrepreneurship and economic development.
Damphousse has been at the University of Oklahoma since 1997, starting as an assistant professor and working his way up to dean. In that role, he is responsible for a budget of more than $100 million budget, 31 academic and research units, 1,000 full-time faculty and staff members and more than 9,000 students. During his time at that university, he also has acted as the faculty athletics representative to the Big 12 Conference and NCAA.
The next Jonesboro chancellor will take charge of the university’s newest partnerships, including its public-private agreement with Arkansas State University Campus Queretaro in Mexico and the New York Institute of Technology’s College of Osteopathic Medicine on the ASU campus.
One of the first initiatives Welch said he would like the chancellor to accomplish is a strategic plan.
“I think the new chancellor will tie in all of our projects and really set a clear vision and picture of where we want to be and where we’re headed,” he said.
There already has been discussion about the university’s goals, he said.
“It’s about getting everybody back together, make sure everybody’s on the same page, setting that vision for the future,” he said.
The winning candidate would replace Doug Whitlock, an interim leader who Welch brought out of retirement at age 73 at the start of the fall semester. Whitlock replaced Tim Hudson, who resigned without a severance package after internal and state audits reporting nepotism and conflicts of interest.
Hudson, 62, earned $360,000 annually, and Whitlock is earning $305,000 annually. His contract runs through June and he has indicated he is willing to stay longer if necessary.
Faculty members and students have applauded Whitlock for his efforts in stabilizing the university and making it more transparent, they’ve said. The groups — represented by faculty senate president Mike McDaniel and the Student Government Association — said they would like a younger version of Whitlock.
Faculty members are especially interested in a candidate with an established record in shared governance, the idea that everyone on campus is involved in a decision-making process. Whitlock already has moved a committee on shared governance from the provost’s office to the chancellor’s office, McDaniel has said.
Student government leaders said Thursday that they want a student-friendly leader who will be available and attend campus events, as Whitlock does.
“I think the biggest thing he’s offered is he really interacts with students,” said Haley Stotts, 20, the Student Government Association president and a junior studying creative media productions. “He’s not just sitting behind a desk. We just want a familiar face on campus.”
Students are concerned about the academic advisory situation since the university restructured its colleges, Stotts said.
“We have a lot of professors who have been thrown into academic advising that they didn’t want to be in,” she said. “We need people who are dedicated to making sure students are taking the right classes and finishing on time.”
Jon Mark Horton, 20, said he would like the chancellor to continue the level of transparency that Whitlock created.
“He sent out mass emails to students to inform us of what was going on and what has happened at the university,” he said. Horton added that he wants the new chancellor to help “bridge the gap” between different groups on campus.
As an example, Landen Crancer, 20, the association’s chief of staff and a sophomore studying accounting, said a sorority member had posted a political picture that had offended others. Instead of sweeping it under the rug, Stotts said, Whitlock released a “great” statement that didn’t take sides but helped alleviate the tension.
While he hadn’t reviewed all the application materials for the three finalists, Horton — a sophomore studying exercise science and the association’s vice president — said the fact that Damphousse and his wife stay in the dormitories with freshmen stood out to him. At Oklahoma, Damphousse is a faculty-in-residence, according to his cover letter.
“He really wants good students here and wants to make that personal connection with students,” Horton said.
Bryant Esten, 20, the association’s parliamentarian, said ASU has been growing, and the university has been committed to student affordability and safety. As it continues to grow, he said, he didn’t want affordability and safety to get lost in translation — or transition.
“The reason why we say we want someone just a bit younger [than Whitlock] is because we’re a growing university,” said Esten, a junior studying marketing and finance. “And we’re looking for a chancellor who will grow with us.”