The search for the ninth VSU president is still underway as the VSU Presidential Search and Screen Committee undergo the planning and recruiting stages of the process.

The committee is now preparing the president’s job description, advertising the job on a national level, soliciting feedback for evaluation of candidates, soliciting requests for nominations and recommendations, reviewing candidate applications and selecting the candidates for interviews.

After these phases, the evaluation and the selection/appointment of the new president will follow, bringing forth a new agenda of tasks to be completed by the committee, including conducting off and on-campus interviews.

For confidentiality reasons, the sites of the interviews cannot be disclosed to the public.

Finally, the committee will choose a select list of candidates and send it to the Special Regents’ Search Committee, made up of Regent Rutledge Griffin and Regent and committee chair Donald Leebern, who will then recommend finalists to Chancellor Hank Huckaby. Huckaby will in turn make a recommendation to the full Board of Regents.

“We review applicants and forward at least three but no more than five names, unranked, to the Regents Committee who will make the final selection,” said Dr. Phyllis Holland, head of the department of management and international business and chair of the search committee. “The Regents Committee will make the final selection.”

The search to replace former VSU president Dr. Patrick Schloss commenced last year on Sept. 8.

After serving as president for three years, Dr. Schloss resigned on June 30 to become the University System of Georgia’s Assistant to Executive Vice Chancellor.

Currently Dr. Louis Levy, former Academic Affairs provost and vice president, is serving as the interim president.

Along with the 11 Lowndes County officials and VSU faculty and staff members that make up the committee, VSU’s student body is represented by Student Government Association president, Graham Davis.

“The committee has begun to narrow the field considerably, and the process is right on schedule,” he said. “We have many promising candidates that we are looking into at the moment.”

The committee expects to have a new president before this fall.

“Our long term objective is to have a President named and ready to take office on July 1,” Dr. Holland said. “I encourage everyone to be patient as the process proceeds.”

In addition to Holland and Davis, the Presidential Search and Screen Committee consists of Lisa Baldwin, Information Technology assistant director; Dr. Greg Harrell, mathematics and computer science professor; Stanley Jones, Office of the Registrar unit administrator; Dr. Julie Lee, College of Education dean; Antolina Pilgrim, accounting financial services director; Dr. Maria Whyte, College of Nursing graduate program coordinator; Chuck H. Dunmon, Jr., Dunmon Construction Company president; Jerry J. Jennett, Georgia Gulf Sulfur, Inc., CEO; James McGahee, South Georgia Medical Center chief executive officer; Greg Volyes, JD., VSU Alumni Association president and Moore and Voyles Attorneys at Law
partner.

Dr. Holland encourages the VSU community to keep up with the ongoing search and offer its feedback to the search committee through the official search website: http://www.valdosta.edu/
pres/search/.