Nevada State’s search down to five for president

Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2004 | 9:39 a.m.

Five finalists remain in the search for a new Nevada State College president after a university regents search committee spent more than three hours shuffling through 10 resumes Tuesday afternoon.

The five top vote getters, all provosts or vice presidents of major universities, will be interviewed in person on Dec. 8 to see if any of the candidates are a right fit to lead the start-up state college.

College faculty on the search committee said they were confident they would find their next president among the final five.

"We'll have a president in January," Rene Cantu, associate vice president of student services, said. "I think we have our rising star in there."

Regent Mark Alden, chairman of the committee, was a little more reserved but said he was pleased with how the search process was going after initial fears that uncertainties surrounding the system had scared off some of the better candidates off.

Committee members narrowed the field from 10 to five after reviewing the resumes with Alberto M. Pimentel, vice president for the nonprofit A. T. Kearney Inc. consultants handling the search.

Leading the pack is Fred Maryanski, a 15-year veteran of the provost's office at the University of Connecticut and the current interim provost and executive vice president of academic affairs. The University of Connecticut is a doctoral-granting research university with 27,000 students currently ranked No. 66 in the nation by U.S. News and World Report.

Twelve out of the 14 committee members present opted to invite Maryanski for an interview.

Originally a computer science professor, Maryanski currently serves as "mini-chancellor" over all of the University of Connecticut's academic departments and five regional campuses, Pimentel said.

Maryanski has extensive experience in administration, academics, raising private money and dealing with the state legislature, Pimentel said.

"He's an impressive guy," Pimentel said, adding that Maryanski has expressed interest in transferring to the significantly smaller Nevada State College because he wants to have the personal contact with faculty and students he doesn't have as provost of the massive University of Connecticut.

The next top vote-getter, Steven N. Garcia, is the vice president for administration and the chief financial officer at California State University, Los Angeles and received 11 votes from the committee.

Pimentel described Garcia as a "non-traditional" candidate in that his experience is almost exclusively on the administration and budget side of running an academic institution. Garcia, however, is viewed "as a leader not only on campus but in the entire (Cal State) system," Pimentel said.

Garcia's strengths include extensive experience in handling budgets, planning and legislative affairs, having worked as a budget and planning policy analyst for the state governments of Washington, Arizona and Kansas.

"He understands the legislative process better than any other candidate except maybe one," Pimentel said. "The one blind spot is the academic side."

Ephraim Smith, vice president of academic affairs at California State University-Fullerton, received nine votes from the committee members to be invited back for an interview.

Another candidate with a strong business focus, Smith was praised primarily for his previous experience building the business college at Cleveland State University in Ohio. In his 15 years there, Smith established most of the college's infrastructure and laid the foundation for its future growth, Pimentel said.

"His success there put the institution on the right path," Pimentel said.

The fourth finalist is Rodolfo "Rudy" Arevalo, provost and vice president of the University of Texas-Pan American in Edinburg, Texas, near the Rio Grande Valley. The doctoral university serves about 16,000 students, about 80 percent of them Hispanic.

Arevalo has extensive experience working on both the academic and administrative sides of running an institution, Pimentel said, and is eager to work at Nevada State College because of the impact he believes he could have.

Rounding out the five finalists is Andrew Bodman, provost at Western Washington University, a master's degree-granting institution that serves about 12,000 students in Bellingham, Wash.

Prior to his stint in Washington, Bodman worked his way up the ladder at the University of Vermont, beginning as geography professor in 1978 and leaving as senior vice provost in charge of the budget and strategic planning in 1999.

After meeting the candidates in person, the search committee will decide who to invite back for campus tours Dec. 13 and 14. The committee hopes to select a president on Dec. 15.