West Virginia State University has revealed its first presidential finalist ahead of a planned meeting Monday with the candidate, alumni, business leaders and the broader public.
Barbara G. Lyman, a teacher education professor and provost and executive vice president at Pennsylvania's Shippensburg University, will be at WVSU for a public meeting 10:45 to 11:30 a.m. Monday in the Dr. Ann Brothers Smith Conference Room in the Judge Damon J. Keith Scholars Hall.
WVSU spokeswoman Kimberly Osborne said other finalists are being invited to visit the university for similar open meetings next week, but university officials say they aren't releasing names until those invited agree to the invitation. Osborne said the new president will take over July 1 for current President Brian Hemphill, who is leaving to head Virginia's Radford University.
According to its website, in fall 2015 Shippensburg, located in its namesake borough about an hour northeast of Martinsburg, had 6,050 undergraduate students and 1,050 graduate students.
Lyman's resume says she was previously Shippensburg's provost and senior vice president for academic affairs from March 2008 through August of last year. She previously worked at the University of West Florida, Texas State University, the University of Delaware, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and Oakland University.
Her resume says that in her current and previous similar positions at Shippensburg she's been the chief academic officer over a school with 100 undergraduate programs, 56 master's degree level graduate programs and one doctorate program as well as programs for other areas like professional and distance education. She says she manages at budget of over $58 million and units including over 500 employees.
The release of Lyman's name as the first finalist comes after WVSU's Presidential Search Advisory Committee spent nearly three hours in closed session Tuesday morning in what university officials said was the search committee's final meeting.
WVSU Foundation board Chairman Mark Kelley, a member of the search committee, made a motion after the board emerged from closed session to direct the search committee's leaders "to invite the candidates discussed" to campus and reveal their names to the public once they accepted the invitations. The other members of the search committee approved the motion - WVSU Chief of Staff and Special Assistant to the President Ashley Schumaker said there were 15 members present, with only Appalachian Power President and Chief Operating Officer Charles Patton and Diane Strong-Treister, president of Manpower, absent.
Kelley deferred comment to Bill Lipscomb, secretary of WVSU's Board of Governors and one of the two search committee heads, who said Tuesday he couldn't say how many finalists there would be until they'd confirmed that they'd come to campus. Lipscomb said he also couldn't say how many candidates would be invited, and said there was no ranking of individuals but the committee did identify top candidates.
Lipscomb said there were more than 30 people who were deemed qualified by the Miramar Beach, Florida-based Greenwood/Asher and Associates Inc. search firm, and nine received in-person interviews in the first round of the interview process that occurred before Tuesday's meeting.
He said Tuesday's meeting went on so long in part because the board was reviewing background and referencing work from the search firm, which the university is giving a base pay of $69,000, not including travel expenses for candidates and consultants.
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