Three deans named finalists for Winthrop president
The final three contenders to be Winthrop University’s next president are all men currently serving as academic deans at larger public colleges. They made the cut from an applicant group that included at least one person serving as president at another school.
University officials unveiled the unranked list of finalists Wednesday, sending to the school’s Board of Trustees the recommendation that one of them be chosen as Winthrop’s 11th president. The announcement follows a nearly six-month national search.
Trustees plan to select a new president in mid-March, and he would start by July 1.
The finalists are:
All three work at colleges with student bodies larger than Winthrop’s. Each oversees budgets, staff and program planning, and they have varying fundraising experience.
Over the next two weeks, Winthrop will host the finalists during separate two-day visits to campus, where they’ll be interviewed by groups of faculty and students. Public events are scheduled during each finalist’s visit, during which they will answer questions.
Elwell, whose son is a freshman student-athlete at Winthrop, will visit starting Sunday. Mahony will arrive in Rock Hill on Wednesday. Shao will arrive March 1.
Shao, who has two daughters who live in Charlotte, said “Winthrop’s trajectory is straight up.” If chosen, he said, he would tap business connections in the Charlotte and Atlanta areas to increase internship, scholarship, mentorship and future employment opportunities for Winthrop students.
“Students always have to be the bull’s-eye,” Shao told The Herald shortly after being named a finalist.
Mahony said he’s attracted to Winthrop’s emphasis on global awareness and learning on a “very student-focused” campus. He knows a few Winthrop graduates, he said, and has recently talked with people who have spent years on the campus.
The university’s reputation is positive, Mahony said, and the school’s values – particularly in cultivating diversity – match his own. He said he would bring to Winthrop a mix of business expertise in his sport management field with his background in more traditional liberal arts education.
Elwell, too, said he’s been impressed with Winthrop’s student-centered approach and, from a parent’s perspective, he found the university’s culture to be friendly, offering a “fantastic experience.” In that area, he said, Winthrop is performing well and, if chosen, he would focus on growing the school’s enrollment and boosting its marketing efforts.
Winthrop has a great story, he said, “and its story needs to get out.”
Faculty rep: Finalists are strong academics
More than 140 people applied for the presidency, officials have said. An appointed presidential search group, consisting of seven trustees and one faculty member, initially narrowed down the pool to 10 semi-finalists who were interviewed in person in Charlotte earlier this month.
Winthrop hired a private executive search consultant from Texas to help run the recruitment and vetting process. The university expects it will have spent about $140,000 on the search, including consultant fees, by the time a president is chosen. Winthrop’s nonprofit fundraising arm and foundation is footing the bill.
While the three finalists are men – currently employed at public colleges with no presidential experience – the wider group of applicants showed a great deal of diversity, said Kathy Bigham, Winthrop Board of Trustees chairwoman.
Bigham led the search group along with faculty representative John Bird, a Winthrop English professor. Both said diversity was a strong consideration when evaluating candidates, and the finalists were the top people.
Shao, Mahony and Elwell stood out among an applicant group with various professional and personal backgrounds – including a sitting and past university president and a CEO, Bigham said. The search group, she said, has found “the right people at the right time for this university.”
That all three finalists have strong academic backgrounds, are well-published, and have worked as professors will impress Winthrop faculty, Bird said. Professors “recognize that a president has to have a very complex role,” he said, “but at the center of our mission is education.”
Each of the finalists is qualified to lead Winthrop, Bigham said. Trustees will make a final decision, she said, after hearing feedback from the campus community. The university also will use an online survey to gather comments.
New president likely to focus on enrollment, morale
The next president will succeed Jamie Comstock Williamson, who was fired last summer just five days shy of her first anniversary in office. Before that, President Anthony DiGiorgio led Winthrop for 24 years before retiring in 2013.
In recruiting presidential candidates, Winthrop officials have listed top priorities for a new leader that include increasing student enrollment, boosting fundraising efforts, and enhancing on-campus activities. The job posting for the position also said the campus needs a “trustworthy” and “polite” president who is able to understand and appreciate “the South and its culture.”
A new president will need to “elevate morale” among campus employees, candidates have been told.
During her short time in office, former Williamson was accused of acting “hostile,” “explosive” and “rude” toward Winthrop staff members, school trustees claimed. That was one reason the board gave for firing her in June.
Trustees also claimed Williamson lied to the board and violated state ethics laws when her husband was hired for an on-campus, part-time position. The former president and her attorney have denied all of the trustees’ allegations and have threatened to sue the school. An ongoing legal dispute over Williamson’s contract and termination is pending.
Before she was fired, Williamson announced plans to grow Winthrop by 1,000 students over a five-year span. Talk of turning around the university’s flat enrollment numbers over the past decade likely will be at the center of discussions with the presidential finalists.
Winthrop has nearly 6,000 students, 90 percent of whom are South Carolina residents. With hometowns so close to campus for the majority of the undergraduate population, Winthrop often has struggled to keep students in Rock Hill on weekends – a challenge that university and city officials are teaming up to try to overcome.
The next Winthrop president will be expected to continue partnerships with city officials to build what planners call a stronger “college town” around the campus, near downtown Rock Hill and along Cherry Road.
This story was originally published February 18, 2015 at 12:03 PM with the headline "Three deans named finalists for Winthrop president."