Three finalists interview for UT president
KNOXVILLE (AP) — The search for the University of Tennessee’s 23rd president came down to three finalists.
From an original slate of 47 applicants, three survivors faced a third and final round of interviews Wednesday before the UT Board of Trustees and its chairman, Gov. Phil Bredesen.
By day’s end, the trustees were expected to select the next leader of the five-campus, 42,000-student system with the hope that he will assume the duties of the $400,000 to $500,000 job by July 1.
The finalists were:
— Jack O. Burns, 51, a trained astronomer and No. 2 administrator in the University of Colorado system as vice president for academic affairs and research.
— Kermit Hall, 59, president and history professor at Utah State University. An author and scholar, he was a member of the presidential commission that reviewed records on the John Kennedy assassination.
— John Petersen, 56, a trained chemist, is provost and executive president for academic affairs at the University of Connecticut.
“I think they are very even,” said trustee Andrea Loughry, chairwoman of an eight-member search committee of trustees, two faculty members and a student that narrowed the list Tuesday.
“We need to ask very probing questions tomorrow that will distinguish the person and go back to the characteristics we have said all along we want.
“The basic characteristics all of them meet,” she said. “But remember we want someone with a passion. We want someone who can speak to all of our constituencies. I think we will find that out tomorrow.”
All three finalists have extensive experience in fund-raising, in dealing with limited state financing, and in outreach programs in public schools.
They also say they are happy where they are but relish the challenge of running a major land grant institution.
All said the scandals that derailed Tennessee’s last two presidents, John Shumaker and J. Wade Gilley, could be overcome and the university’s credibility restored.
The lengthy and unusually open search process was designed to reduce the chances of a third failed presidency.
Interim President Joe Johnson said he feels good about the result.
“I commend the (trustee) board for what it has done, for setting up the process. And I commend all these folks for going through it,” Johnson said of the candidates.
Johnson, a longtime UT administrator, never experienced anything like this before he was named president in 1991 and served until he retired in 1999.
The effort has “yielded a very positive pool of candidates,” he said.
Will it guarantee a good president? Johnson laughed.
“Well,” he said, “I believe sincerely it will go a long way toward assuring that.”
Three other candidates were eliminated Tuesday. They were the oldest candidates in the pool and included the only minority candidate and the only two Tennessee natives.
Eliminated were:
— Brady Deaton, 61, provost at the University of Missouri at Columbia and a former UT-Knoxville professor.
— Kenneth Olden, 65, director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Science, who grew up on a farm near Knoxville and couldn’t attend the university decades ago because he is black.
— Bill Stacy, 65, chancellor of UT-Chattanooga and a Tennessee native.
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To read biographical summaries of each of the candidates, visit http://pr.tennessee.edu/presidentialsearch