The Board of Trustees at Davis & Elkins College has named Chris Wood the school's 15th president, replacing G.T. "Buck" Smith, who filled the role in the interim, according to a news release.
Wood, a Huntington native, was selected from among more than 60 candidates following a yearlong search. He is currently the vice president for advancement at Wesley College in Dover, Delaware. His appointment at Davis & Elkins begins Aug. 1.
"After a year of considering more than 60 candidates, we are delighted to welcome Chris and his wife Lisa back home to West Virginia," said June Myles, chairwoman of the board, in a news release. "They bring to D&E the exact qualities we have been seeking in a new president, and we look forward to him leading us into the future."
Linda Skidmore, a Davis & Elkins spokeswoman, said Wood could not take a call Wednesday.
In a statement, Wood says while he has not been actively seeking a college presidency, he found that D&E's liberal arts education offerings, faith-based roots and location in his home state were "enticing and captivating."
Wood has a bachelor's degree from West Virginia Wesleyan College and a post-graduate degree from Northwestern University's theological seminary.
The announcement came Wednesday morning less than a month after faculty members conducted a vote of no-confidence in Smith. Among other things, faculty condemned the man for the long-term costs of his short-term financial management of the school, his indifference to faculty concerns and his overall strategic vision for the school.
Several members of the faculty would not talk about the no-confidence vote or Smith's replacement. Some said they feared retribution from the school's administration or Board of Trustees or that commenting would hurt the school's relationship with its donors.
In a letter to the Board of Trustees, Smith attempted to discredit the no-confidence vote by suggesting that, had the entire faculty assembly been in attendance, the results would have been different. With 53 faculty members eligible to vote, only 37 were present.
He wrote in the same letter that many faculty members were not aware that Brent Saindon, an assistant professor of communications, would bring up the vote, so some members had left to meet their classes.
A few days later, the faculty assembly considered a motion to rescind that vote. But that motion failed 29-22, with the majority voting to uphold the vote and only two members of the assembly not participating, according to a faculty member who asked to remain anonymous. The faculty member was one of the members who did not vote because they weren't able to attend the meeting, but faculty members who did attend shared the results with them afterward.
So the vote of no confidence stood.
When Skidmore and another D&E spokeswoman, Nanci Bross-Fregonara, were previously asked questions about the vote, Bross-Fregonara only pointed to the news release her office put out.
"We are currently in the midst of commencement weekend," Bross-Fregonara wrote in a May 20 email. "I will ask Buck if he cares to comment." He did not.
Smith previously led the school from 2008 to 2013. He retired to an advisory role as president emeritus when Michael Mihalyo Jr. took the helm of the school. Mihalyo retired after leading the school for two years, opting for a new post as president of the Appalachian College Association.
Smith will, again, retire to the position of president emeritus.
Reach Jake Jarvis at jake.jarvis@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-7939 or follow @NewsroomJake on Twitter.