Winthrop names 3 finalists for University President. Who they are, hiring timeline

Winthrop is a big step closer to naming its new leader.

The Board of Trustees for the public institution in Rock Hill named three finalists for the position of University President on Friday. Those three: Edward Serna, president at the University of Maine Farmington; Martin Roth, president of the University of Charleston (Charleston, WVa.); and Neal Weaver, president of Georgia Southwestern State University.

The board plans to make its choice within two weeks, according to a release from the school, and an official announcement is “tentatively” planned by the end of the month. Each candidate will make a presentation and attend a public meet and greet sometime the week of Feb. 6.

The new president will begin work July 1.

Winthrop’s new president will effectively replace George Hynd, who was appointed by the board as the university’s interim president on Jan. 31, 2020. In his tenure, Hynd has been through the wringer: Two months into his tenure, the COVID-19 pandemic forced Winthrop to radically change its campus operations. Months after that, the university was also driven to discontinue its men’s and women’s tennis programs and, later, to implement employee furloughs for the first time since the Great Recession.

These instances only brought more attention to the long-term issues the school has been battling on Hynd’s watch — including a decreasing enrollment. Student enrollment at Winthrop is down by almost 500 students since the 2017-18 school year, according to a report released by the Palmetto Report earlier this week.

Winthrop has a total undergraduate enrollment of 4,406 in the fall of 2020, according to its profile on the US News and World Report.

Hynd was hired to temporarily replace Dan Mahony, who announced his resignation from Winthrop in Dec. 2019 after being chosen for the presidential role at the Southern Illinois University System.

“Selecting a new president is the most important and rewarding task that we as Trustees do to help ensure the future success of Winthrop University and our students,” Board of Trustees Chair Glenn McCall said in a statement. “This group of finalists is well prepared to lead Winthrop University into a brighter future.”

The finalists were chosen after an eight-month search process in association with Myers McRae, a Georgia-based higher education consulting firm.

Meet the candidates

▪ Edward Serna is president of the University of Maine Farmington, a self-described small, residential campus in the lakes and mountains region of western Maine. UMF has around 1,600 full-time students, per its website. Serna is a Winthrop alum who went on to earn a doctorate degree in higher education administration from Alabama. Before being at UMF, he came from the University of Arkansas-Fort Smith, where he served as interim chancellor.

▪ Martin Roth is president of the University of Charleston in West Virginia, a school of about 2,620 (per the spring of 2019) directly across the river from the state capitol building and downtown Charleston. He earned his undergraduate degree in business and economics from the University of Pittsburgh, and before coming to West Virginia, he served as the dean and professor of management and marketing at the University of Hartford and also served as the chief innovation and assessment officer at Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina.

▪ Neal Weaver is president of Georgia Southwestern State University, a school in the city of Americus with an enrollment of 3,162, per its website. Previously to GSW, he served as the vice president for university advancement and innovation at Nicholls State in Thibodaux, Louisiana. He holds a Ph.D. in organizational leadership from the University of Oklahoma and earned a bachelor’s degree in speech/communications from Oklahoma Panhandle State University.

When each candidate will be on campus

Edward Serna, president, University of Maine Farmington

Public Presentation: Monday, February 7, 3-4 p.m., Dina’s Place, DiGiorgio Campus Center

Meet and Greet: Monday, February 7, 4-5 p.m., West Center lobby

Martin Roth, president, University of Charleston (Charleston, West Virginia)

Public Presentation: Wednesday, February 9, 3-4 p.m., Dina’s Place, DiGiorgio Campus Center

Meet and Greet: Wednesday, February 9, 4-5 p.m., West Center lobby

Neal Weaver, president, Georgia Southwestern State University

Public Presentation: Thursday, February 10, 3-4 p.m., Dina’s Place, DiGiorgio Campus Center

Meet and Greet: Thursday, February 10, 4-5 p.m., West Center lobby

This story was originally published February 6, 2022 at 8:23 AM.

Alex Zietlow

The Herald

Alex Zietlow writes about sports and the ways in which they intersect with life in York, Chester and Lancaster counties for The Herald, where he has been an editor and reporter since August 2019. Zietlow has won nine S.C. Press Association awards in his career, including First Place finishes in Feature Writing, Sports Enterprise Writing and Education Beat Reporting. He also received two Top-10 awards in the 2021 APSE writing contest and was nominated for the 2022 U.S. Basketball Writers Association’s Rising Star award for his coverage of the Winthrop men’s basketball team.