ASU looks to Texas for its next chancellor

JONESBORO — Tim Hudson, the vice chancellor of the Texas Tech University System, will be named the Arkansas State University chancellor today, sources with direct knowledge of the selection said Thursday.

Hudson will be introduced during an 8:30 a.m. meeting of the search advisory committee in the Carl R. Reng Student Union on the ASU campus.

The ASU board of trustees is scheduled to meet at 9 a.m., when it is expected to approve ASU System President Charles Welch’s recommendation.

Hudson plans to begin as

chancellor in July.

Hudson has been the vice chancellor for the Texas Tech University System in Lubbock since August.

Before that, he was a special assistant to the chancellor for international programs and initiatives at the University of Houston System.

The sources, interviewed Thursday, requested that their names not be used.

Welch has kept his selection quiet this week, even in e-mail notices to the campus community about today’s meeting, when he plans to publicly identify his choice.

“I am pleased to report that I have selected our new chancellor at Asu-jonesboro, and the new chancellor will be in attendance at the Board of Trustees meeting,” Welch wrote in an e-mail Wednesday to committee members about today’s meeting.

He did not name his choice in that e-mail.

The selection ends a fivemonth process that began in October when ASU accepted applications for the chancellor’s position.

Twenty-nine applied for the job.

Two candidates withdrew, including Asu-jonesboro interim Chancellor G. Daniel Howard.

Welch named Hudson and two others as finalists for the job Jan. 26 and then made his selection after conferring with a search advisory committee of ASU faculty, staff and students and Jonesboro community leaders.

John Beehler, founding provost and vice president for academic excellence and student success at the University of North Texas at Dallas, and Soraya Coley, provost and vice president for academic affairs and interim vice president for university advancement at California State UniversityBakersfield, were the other finalists.

Welch did not return telephone messages or e-mails Thursday evening.

“I don’t think we could have picked a better three,” Welch had said of the finalists during a search advisory committee meeting last week.

The three candidates visited the Jonesboro campus in February and met with faculty and staff members, student leaders and the public.

Coley and Beehler spoke in forums at the ASU Student Union auditorium.

Hudson spoke in the Cooper Alumni Center on the ASU campus.

Hudson did not return messages on his cell phone Thursday.

Christina Martinez, an executive secretary to the Texas Tech University board of regents, said Hudson was attending the regents’ meeting Thursday and today, and would not be available for comment until this afternoon or Monday.

However, the Embassy Suites in Little Rock confirmed Thursday evening that Hudson had a reservation at the hotel and was expected to arrive later that night.

A source close to the search process said Hudson would drive from Little Rock to Jonesboro this morning for the meeting and then return to Lubbock in the afternoon.

Currently, the chancellor can make $ 180,260 in state funds, according to Act 1089 of 2011.

State law allows universities to increase maximum salaries up to 25 percent for up to 10 percent of their employees.

Act 221 of 2012 raises the maximum salary for the ASU chancellor to $185,667 in public funds.

Universities can also use private funding to increase salaries.

The ASU board must first approve Welch’s selection before Hudson takes the helm.

Board members were to meet at ASU- Searcy at 10 a.m. today, but Welch moved the meeting to Jonesboro and changed the time to an hour earlier.

Hudson has been president of the University of Houston-victoria from 2004 to 2010 during a time when the university doubled its enrollment and developed online programs.

He also spent two years as provost and vice president for academic affairs at the University of Southern Mississippi, where he had previously been the founding dean of its College of International and Continuing Education.

Hudson earned his bachelor’s degree in history and Latin American studies at the University of Southern Mississippi in 1975 and his master’s degree in geography in 1977 from that school.

He earned his doctorate in geography from Clark University in Worcester, Mass., in 1980.

He and his wife, Deidra, have three children. Information for this article was contributed by Evie Blad of the

Arkansas Democrat-gazette.

Hudson