Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 25, 1995 TAG: 9501250069
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: ALLISON BLAKE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RADFORD LENGTH: Medium
Squinting into the lights as he stood on stage looking into the audience, where the faculty had spent more than an hour questioning the finalist for the university president's post, Hunter said he wished he could ``see your eyes - see whether you're sincere about what you want at Radford University.''
Clearly familiar with the controversy that has dogged the campus for more than a year - from the resignation of former president Donald Dedmon under pressure from faculty dissent, to the axing of the experimental New College of Global Studies because of proposed state budget cuts - Hunter told campus groups that he sees Radford as a university at a crossroads.
The university must examine what it wants, he said. Once priorities are set, all constituencies need to get together and move ahead.
That challenge is one reason Hunter would leave his $137,500-a-year job as president of 2,487-student Charleston Southern University, a private, Southern Baptist-affiliated school in South Carolina. But Hunter also made it clear that he did not want to sink into a morass.
``Quite frankly,'' he said, ``Why should I get off a plane that has two engines, and get on one [where] I'm not sure where the engines are?''
Painting himself as a collaborator with an open door, who has good fund-raising contacts and is savvy with legislators, Hunter also echoed a statement heard often around Radford: The school is better than its image suggests.
Open sessions with different campus constituencies are a starting point for staking out the school's future priorities, he said.
Hunter, president of Charleston Southern since 1984, holds a bachelor's and two masters degrees from Appalachian State University and a Ph.D. in administration and management from Duke University. The South Carolina native has worked with university and community college systems in North Carolina and Florida.
Students like junior Robert Sucher, who recalls Dedmon as an inaccessible figure rarely seen on campus, seemed concerned when Hunter said he tended to spend half his week on campus, and half off.
``I think the president should be on campus and visible. If the president is out of town a lot, yes, he has phone, fax and modem. ... But I feel that Dr. Dedmon wasn't visible enough. He lost touch with his students,'' Sucher said.
Faculty concerns about the search process have bubbled up in recent days. Hunter was recruited for an interview by John Kuhnle, a consultant from the international search firm Korn/Ferry, just this month. The search committee found out his name the night before they met him, when he interviewed along with eight other finalists the weekend of Jan.14, said search committee chairwoman Karen Waldron.
But faculty president Tom Mullis, a member of the search committee, said it was his understanding that some people outside the search committee had prior knowledge of the candidates, and ``it has created some concern.''
``It was our understanding the search process ... information was to be confidential,'' Mullis said.
Hunter told the faculty that Kuhnle first approached him several months ago - and that he was not interested. Hunter went to the Jan.14 interview on a consulting basis. He was one of two candidates unanimously chosen for final interviews by the 14-member search committee.
The other finalist, Douglas Covington, is president of traditionally black Cheyney University in Pennsylvania. He starts his two-day interview today.
In response to a question, Hunter said Charles King, Radford vice president for business, had worked for him at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. King said that association was not a leading factor in Hunter's being asked to Radford, however. King also pointed out that Kuhnle had handled the Radford search - and that Hunter had been chosen unanimously.
It is unclear how much the new president will earn, but Dedmon earns $125,000. He went on sick leave last summer and officially retires this August.
by CNB