Ten compete to lead Nevada State College

Monday, Nov. 15, 2004 | 9:28 a.m.

The 10 candidates vying for the chance to lead Nevada State College at Henderson are predominantly provosts, vice presidents or deans looking for a step up.

That's exactly what some college faculty members on the search committee said they wanted at the last meeting -- an up-and-coming star who would be willing to gamble on the potential of the two-year-old college and overlook the institution's budget struggles.

But it also means there are few sitting presidents in the pool to choose from who have the experience of leading an entire institution.

The 17-person committee of regents and members of the Nevada State College community is scheduled to review the applications of the candidates Tuesday afternoon and decide whether to move forward with interviews.

Alberto M. Pimentel, vice president of the nonprofit A. T. Kearney Inc. firm handling the search, said the candidate pool was strong despite the loss of a few people who withdrew their applications because of questions about the college and uncertainties about who would replace Interim Chancellor Jim Rogers.

Pimentel had warned the committee members a few weeks ago that they should consider postponing the search because of the concerns some candidates had expressed about who their new boss would be. Some candidates were also concerned that the college had gone through four leaders, including two interim presidents, in only four years, and that the college's funding for its first building was still in question, Pimentel said.

Most of the candidates who were concerned decided to apply anyway, however, Pimentel said.

"It wasn't a hard sell," Pimentel said. "There's never been concern about the position itself or the potential of position, they just wanted more information about the chancellor's search."

Pimentel said that all of the candidates were "very good" and that he wouldn't have put their names forward if he didn't think that.

"I do not think that in any way that the committee would be settling" for second best, Pimentel said. "I can honestly say that they have some strong candidates coming in."

Pimentel released the names of the candidates to the University and Community College System of Nevada but said he could not release any more information until Tuesday's meeting with the committee.

At least one, Thomas Krepel, is a sitting president. He has been at Chadron State College in northwest Nebraska for the last six years. Chadron is a master's degree granting institution with about 3,000 students. The native-Nebraskan came to Chadran as a vice president after working as a dean for University Outreach at Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi in Texas.

Fred Maryanski has 15 years of experience in the provost's office at the University of Connecticut, where he is currently interim chancellor and executive vice president for Academic Affairs. Rodolfo Arevalo is the provost and vice president of the University of Texas-Pan American in Edinburg, Texas, near the Rio Grande Valley. The doctoral-granting university serves about 16,000 students.

Andrew Bodman is the provost at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Wash.

The only woman among the candidates is Brenda Nichols, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas.

Greg Weisenstein has been dean of the of the College of Education, Health and Human Development at Montana State University in Bozeman since 1999.

Yiping Wan is the dean of the Bagwell College of Education at Kennesaw State University in Georgia, a master's degree granting institution with about 17,000 students.

No information could be found for the three other candidates: Steven Garcia, John Miller and Ephraim Smith.