UNIVERSITY OF TOLEDO

Presidential search committee announced

Board hopes to get 100 applicants by October

8/1/2014

Jacobs

THE BLADE
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The University of Toledo announced Thursday the members of a presidential search committee that will be charged with finding a permanent replacement for Dr. Lloyd Jacobs.

The 20 member team includes faculty from across the university, the Faculty Senate and Student Government presidents, and a number of former members of the UT Board of Trustees. Joseph H. Zerbey IV, board of trustees chairman and The Blade’s president and general manager, will lead the search committee, and board Vice Chairman Sharon Speyer will serve as vice chairman of the committee.

Mr. Zerbey said he sent a list of suggested committee members to the board, and board members then made additions and deletions. He looked for faculty from disciplines in all areas of the university, and for community members with individual expertise and strong connections to UT.

Search firm Witt/​Kieffer of Oak Brook, Ill., is expected to place an advertisement in the September edition of the Chronicle of Higher Education seeking applicants.

Mr. Zerbey said he hoped to receive about 100 applicants by the end of October, which the search firm will then cull to between 10 and 20 people.

The search committee will interview those semifinalists. Those interviews will be done at a regional airport — likely Detroit — and won’t be open to the public, Mr. Zerbey said.

“It enables them to have specific discussions and questions without a gallery there to make noise or intimidate the candidate or whatever,” he said when asked the purpose of not making those interviews public.

The committee will then forward between two and five unranked finalists to the board of trustees to consider.

The university announced last month that Dr. Jacobs would leave his position June 30, after previously announcing in March that he would step down effective June 30, 2015, a year before his contract ends. Nagi Naganathan, who was dean of UT’s College of Engineering, was named interim president of the university last month.

Along with Mr. Zerbey and Ms. Speyer, committee members include:

● Dave Morlock, executive vice president for finance and administration and chief executive of the UT Medical Center, the former Medical College of Ohio.

● Karen Hoblet, president of the faculty senate and assistant professor of nursing.

● Karen Bjorkman, dean of the college of natural sciences and mathematics.

● Johnnie Early, dean of the college of pharmacy and pharmaceutical sciences.

● Ali Fatemi, distinguished university professor in the department of mechanical, industrial, and manufacturing engineering.

● Dr. Kris Brickman, professor and chairman of the department of emergency medicine.

● Sonia Najjar, Hiss endowed professor of diabetes research in the department of pharmacology and physiology.

● Mike O’Brien, vice president and director of intercollegiate athletics.

● Clayton Notestine, president of student government.

● Connie Zouhary, vice chairman of the UT Foundation Board and executive vice president of Buckenmeyer & King.

● Bob Savage, Savage and Associates, former UT trustee and a UT donor.

● Susan Palmer, former UT trustee and a UT donor.

● George Chapman, former chief executive of Health Care REIT, and a former Medical College of Ohio and UT trustee.

● Toledo fire Chief Luis Santiago.

● Greg Kopan, chief executive of Beacon Financial, former president of the UT Foundation and a member of the UT real estate committee.

● Richard McQuade, former federal district judge, former UT trustee, a UT donor, and a holder of two UT degrees.

● Chuck Sullivan, retired chief executive of Interstate Bakeries, former chairman of the UT Foundation trustees, and a UT donor who holds a UT honorary degree.

● Calvin Lawshe, former UT vice president for student affairs and former city of Toledo administrator.

Contact Nolan Rosenkrans at: nrosenkrans@theblade.com or 419-724-6086, or on Twitter @NolanRosenkrans.