Story by Daniella Tebib, News Editor
Bob Jackson was voted the 14th president of Murray State at the Board of Regents meeting on March 1.
Jackson, who was previously interim president, was appointed with a 9-2 vote. Lisa Rudolph, presidential search committee chair and vice chair of the board, and Regent Sharon Green voted no.
“I am honored to serve as the 14th president of Murray State University and greatly appreciate the support and confidence of the Board of Regents,” Jackson said. “We have an important duty to this region and state and I look forward to the work ahead. The students and families of this region are counting on us to make a positive difference in their lives and to enhance the economic well-being of this area.”
Susan Guess, chair of the board, opened the discussion with her thoughts on the process to find a new president from the moment Bob Davies resigned.
“Just 30 more days after we began as a team, Bob Davies resigned as our president,” Guess said. “And it was just a 15-hour notice that we received that resignation before Central Michigan named him as their next president.”
Guess said several board members approached her prior to the meeting in hopes of putting the item to appoint Jackson on the agenda.
“Those who requested this action told me that Dr. Jackson is the person that they believe should be our next president,” Guess said. “They also told me that no matter what the search brought, they believe that Dr. Jackson is the person to lead us at this time.”
After Guess concluded her remarks, Student Government Association President and Student Regent J.T. Payne opened the motion to employ Bob Jackson as the 14th president at an annual salary of $325,000 for a term of 4 years.
Payne said he was reluctant about Jackson at first, but after working closely with him, the student Regent’s opinion changed.
“Today, the time has come to determine a person… who no doubt has an overwhelming amount of community support, a person who has proven he can provide much needed stability of the University in these prevailing times and a person who has the confidence of both the student body as a whole and me as an individual,” Payne said.
Rudolph said she had some concerns with appointing Jackson as president.
“It’s the ‘what,’ not the ‘who,’ as I said in the forums… it’s the process,” Rudolph said. “We have 32 candidates, we have several that have been identified as tier 1 and had been ranked as we wanted to bring them in for interviews. We find ourselves here, abandoning the process, abandoning the search and voting to hire a president when we have not vetted a single candidate and not interviewed a single candidate. So, I have a little bit of an issue with the credibility of the board process and the hiring process… We’re jumping to the finish line without completing the steps.”
Rudolph was not the only one with these concerns.
Green said she had received many phone calls and a letter from concerned alumni. She then read a letter sent from alumni David Franklin, Kerry Harvey, Jay Rayburn and R. Lynn Richard, who also had problems with the process.
“The integrity of the process itself is as important as the outcome and the candidate selected. While identifying the new president is vitally important, the integrity of the process either advances, or in the worst case, undermines the very ideals upon which MSU rests,” according to letter.
The alumni who wrote the letter believe the main goal of the search process was to create the most competitive pool of candidates to choose a president from.
“A new president selected from a search seen as fair and rigorous has a far better chance of success than one forever tainted with the suspicion that the process was designed to reach a predetermined result,” according to the letter.
The alumni also took issue with some of the actions the board has taken throughout this process.
“These actions include allowing an interim president to also be a candidate in the search; the decision to forego the use of a reputable executive search firm to identify and recruit high -quality candidates to the final interview stage before the process has truly begun, giving that candidate explicit and well-publicized advantage over every other applicant, by creating a separate process that applies to only one candidate,” according to the letter.
However, the board also received numerous letters and resolutions urging them to appoint Jackson.
Stephen Williams, Harry Lee Waterfield II and Alan Stout, former chairs of the board, wrote a letter to recommend Jackson as the next president.
The former chairs also said by appointing Jackson, the University would save money and time.
“The timeline for an expensive national search with a contracted search firm would likely extend 7-9 months or more from the initiation of a search until the arrival of the selected candidate. Our last search took about 10 months. Then add to that at least 6 to 9 months, more likely a year or more, for the new unfamiliar president to gain knowledge of MSU, the region, and the Commonwealth sufficient to feel comfortable in making difficult policy and financial decisions and recommendations to the BOR. That means MSU would be going 18 months or more without strong, informed presidential leadership. Could the BOR really expect to find someone else from the ‘outside’ who could even come close to having… other attributes that would outweigh all of those attributes above which Dr. Jackson clearly possesses,” according to the letter.
Regent Jerry Rhoads said he spoke in favor of the appointment of Jackson because of the overwhelming support Jackson has received from a variety of organizations.
“It’s amazing to me how many different constituent groups have stepped forward to express their views about Dr. Jackson,” Rhoads said. “Students, staff, faculty, community, legislative leaders, a judicial representative, former supreme court justice, large donors – they’ve just sort of rallied to make their statement to this board that we have the right person at the right time.”
To avoid issues with any future presidential searches, Regent Don Tharpe suggested the board should develop policies to regulate the process.
“I’d like to remind the board that we are a policy board and being a policy board, we need to be drafting policy about how we elect our president,” Tharpe said. “If we had that policy in place, we wouldn’t be where we are now… [We should have] policies in place about how we select a president, if we should select a search firm and how we go about this process.”
Moving forward as president, Jackson hopes to continue the University’s focus on recruitment and retention efforts and deferred maintenance. He also plans to move into Oakhurst soon.