Recruiting firm OK’d for UL System search
The University of Louisiana System opened the door to hiring a recruiting firm to help find a new president after receiving only eight applications one month into the search.
The UL System Board of Supervisors started what it described as an expedited search on July 19 in the hopes of replacing current President Randy Moffett by the end of this month.
Moffett is expected to retire in mid-September. His replacement will oversee nine public colleges, including Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, the University of New Orleans, McNeese State University in Lake Charles and Nicholls State University in Thibodaux.
But Board Chairman Wayne Parker said this week that the process hasn’t gone as quickly as anticipated.
“While we appreciate the applications we’ve received, we’re not at the point we’d hoped to be,” Parker said. “We do have some impressive applicants, but we would like a larger pool before we begin considering candidates for interviewing.”
Parker, who also leads the Board of Supervisors’ search committee, asked the full board Tuesday to authorize permission to contract with a recruiting firm if necessary.
Parker did not say what circumstances would have to be reached before the board brought in a recruiting firm.
The board has reached out to former State Commissioner of Higher Education Tom Layzell as a contingency plan to take over the president’s position if the board hasn’t filled the vacancy by Sept. 14 when Moffett is expected to step down, Parker said.
Layzell, who works as an education consultant, worked as Louisiana’s interim commissioner of higher education as recently as last year.
The eight educators who have applied are:
- € Lesley Lovett-Doust, president and vice chancellor of Nipissing University in Ontario, Canada.
- € Walter Johnson Jr., Computer Information Sciences chairman at Shaw University in Raleigh, N.C.
- € Gary M. Lawler, chancellor of Pennsylvania State University-Hazelton Campus in Hazelton, Pa.
- € Gwyndolyn McClellan, chief executive officer and president of Value-Based Management Inc., in Sarasota, Fla.
- € Ronald A. Nykiel, dean of the College of Business at Husson University in Bangor, Maine.
- € Martin M. Shapiro, professor of marketing, management and international business at Berkeley Colleges in New York and New Jersey.
- €Michael A. Wartell, chancellor emeritus and professor of chemistry at Indiana University-Purdue University in Fort Wayne, Ind.
- € Walter V. Wendler, director and professor of the School of Architecture at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.