No apparent front-runner in UT president search
KNOXVILLE (AP) — In early voting, a favorite candidate has yet to emerge from the University of Tennessee’s unusually open search for a new president.
That’s probably for the best with a second round of public, Webcast interviews awaiting the six remaining contenders Tuesday, and the three finalists before the UT Board of Trustees votes on Wednesday.
“I don’t have a front-runner, and I don’t think anyone else does,” said trustee Waymon Hickman of Columbia, a member of the 19-member search advisory council that spent three days interviewing candidates.
The panel of five trustees, four faculty, four students, four alumni and two staff members eliminated three candidates and very nearly a fourth last week.
Compliments were paid to all the survivors — notably UT-Chattanooga Chancellor Bill Stacy, Utah State President Kermit Hall and Kenneth Olden, director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Science at Research Triangle Park, N.C.
But there was no indication from ballots examined by The Associated Press how this list will be pared in the search for the 23rd president in the 210-year history of the five-campus, 42,000-student system.
Five ballots were cast to cut the list from nine to six.
Northern Illinois President John Peters and Knoxville hospital executive Jerry Askew, both former UT-Knoxville officials, were eliminated on the first ballot. Thirteen no-votes were needed. Peters received all 19; Askew had 17.
UT Law Dean Tom Galligan was voted out with 16 votes on the third ballot.
Brady Deaton, provost at the University of Missouri at Columbia and a former UT-Knoxville professor, narrowly escaped. He had 12 votes on the second and third ballots and 11 on the fourth.
He received 10 votes on the fifth and final ballot, but was possibly spared when five council members didn’t vote in hopes of sending six candidates to the next round.
University of Missouri System President Elson S. Floyd said Saturday that he has asked Deaton to serve as interim chancellor of the University of Missouri-Columbia.
Deaton indicated he would complete the UT search before responding to Floyd’s offer.
“Since I am involved in the UT search, I must respect the completion of that process,” Deaton said in a statement released by the university. “But that in no way diminishes my commitment to and pride in MU.”
Of the other survivors:
— Olden received one strike on one ballot, none on the other four.
— Jack Burns, vice president of academic affairs for the University of Colorado system, received one strike on two ballots, none on the rest.
— John Petersen, provost of the University of Connecticut, had one strike vote on four ballots, none on the fifth.
— Stacy had two strikes on one ballot, one strike on a third, and none on the other two.
— Hall had two strikes on four ballots and three on the other.
Panelist and trustee Susan Williams of Knoxville said the hurdles of disclosure, openness and inclusion crafted for this $252,000 search — likely the most expensive in Tennessee history — are working.
“I said from the get-go, with 19 votes from different perspectives, you can’t control it,” she said. “The students look at it very differently from a trustee. Faculty look at it differently from the way a student would look at it.
“It is kind of a cool thing in many ways because it is an open process and nobody believed it was going to be open,” she said. “You can’t ‘fix’ it, and that is what worried people.”
Sheldon Steinbach, general counsel at the Washington-based American Council on Education advocacy organization, earlier described the process as a “massive overreaction” by Tennessee to the scandals that undercut its past two presidents, John Shumaker and J. Wade Gilley.
Steinbach wondered who would volunteer for such a public inspection. On Friday, he was pleased to learn Hall, an ACE board member, was among the remaining contenders.
“We will be watching,” Steinbach said. “This is always good fun. It is still a circus.”
A different committee of five trustees, the UT student trustee and two faculty members will conduct the second-round interviews and cut the list to three on Tuesday.
The full UT Board of Trustees, chaired by Gov. Phil Bredesen, will interview the finalists on Wednesday and vote for the new president.
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To read biographical summaries of each of the candidates, visit http://pr.tennessee.edu/presidentialsearch