Alabama State trustees to pick new university president

Alabama State University could have a new president by year end. Without a formal announcement, the university filed a notice with the State Secretary of State today for a board of trustees meeting Dec. 20. The board will interview candidates and decide the university’s next president during that meeting set for 9 a.m. in the board room of the Dunn-Oliver Acadome, according to the notice. The notice comes after a special committee narrowed the field of applicants for the job from more than 70 to three finalists last week. The finalists are as follows: Sen. Quinton Ross Jr., D-Montgomery, who is serving his third term in the Alabama Senate. A native of mobile, he has a bachelor’s degree in political science and a master’s degree in education from Alabama State University. He currently serves as director of the Adult Education Consortium at H. Trenholm State Technical College and recently completed a doctoral degree in educational leadership, policy and law at Alabama State.Gwendolyn Boyd, an engineer and executive assistant to the chief of staff at Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md. She is a native of Montgomery, a graduate of Alabama State University and former national president of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority. She is also an ordained minister, and she was appointed by President Obama to the Barry Goldwater Commission on excellence in education. Brigadier Gen. Samuel Nichols Jr., the former deputy commander of the U.S. join task force at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.He is a native of Biloxi, Miss. and a former football player for Mississippi State University, where he earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education. He currently resides in Virginia, where he works for the Veterans Affairs Administration. Whoever takes charge of the university, will do so under a cloud of controversy. The governor’s office released in October a contracted forensic auditor’s report alleging financial wrongdoing among leadership and wasteful spending of more than $1 million.That audit comes after the board decided in December 2012 to pay former President Joseph Silver $685,000 to resign after just 13 weeks on the job. At the time, Silver alleged he was curbed for questioning suspicious contracts at the school. Source: Education News