Recap: Search Interviews Day Two

Today’s interviews started out with Larry Palmer followed by Lawrence Davenport and Howard Johnson. RN’s sources indicate that by 9:47 a.m., the search committee should have shut the process down and moved on to select candidates from yesterday’s pool. However, wisdom prevailed and the search committee continued. One interview took them around the world or at least to South America within 45 minutes with descriptions of goats, villages, baseball, fried chicken; and, followed by I’ve been told that this J-O-B is mine.

Ambassador Larry Palmer would be excellent as a visiting professor in foreign services. He shared a wealth of knowledge about the operations of American embassies on foreign soil. However, our sources indicate that he just could not make that leap or connection to academia. He’s a great storyteller and probably would be an excellent addition to the faculty if we had a program for individuals majoring in international studies.

Lawrence Davenport shared a wealth of knowledge when it came to financial management, but we are told he just did not connect in a meaningful way. His experiences at the Hershey School and Harlem’s Hale House were not communicated in a way that connected with the HBCU experience and management of the academic side of the house; recruitment; retention; graduation; faculty development; SACS, etc. Probably would make an excellent vice president of administrative services (CFO). We're sure he would be less expensive than KPMG.

Howard Johnson was almost 2 hours late (flight delays). Now we understand why our professors tell us to arrive a day early for interviews. Our sources indicate he was worth the wait. It became clear that he was the top candidate for day two. Johnson responded to the search committee’s questions directly without a lot of verbiage and storytelling. It was clear he understood terms like retention, graduation, recruitment, student life, faculty development, tenure, shared governance, and SACS. He was able to articulate how the University of North Texas is dealing with these same issues.

RN's rank by performance for the first round:
1st Place - Chancellor Ammons
2nd Place - President Thompson/Provost Johnson (tied)

Interviews with the finalists for faculty, staff, alumni and supporters will take place January 18, 19 and 20 (2007). Interview with the full board is February 1, 2007.

Special kudos to Rev. Holmes and the other members of the presidential search committee (Agnew, Branker, Diallo and Jenkins) for doing a great job these last two days. We are told that they worked together and it showed what could happen without Lowe in the picture.