News

Presidential search committee formed

Miller picked as student representative

Cougar News Services

The search for a new UH president and UH System chancellor is officially on. The 20 people who will make up the search committee have been chosen by the Board of Regents, and will start meeting this week.

The committee will work with the headhunting firm Korn/Ferry International to find a replacement for Arthur K. Smith, who will retire from the president/chancellor post in September, assuming a replacement is found by then.

The search committee chairman will be Board of Regents Chairman Gene McDavid, and Regents member Thad "Bo" Smith will be the vice-chairman. Two others of the nine regents will also serve on the committee: Michael Cemo and Theresa Chang.

The only student on the committee will be Dawona Miller, president of the Student Government Association.

Four will represent the UH faculty: Anne Jacobson, the Faculty Senate president and an associate professor of philosophy; Raymond Flumerfelt, the dean of the College of Engineering; Alex Ignatiev, a physics professor and the director of the Center for Superconductivity and Advanced Materials; and Michael Olivas, a law professor and the director of the Institute for Higher Education Law and Governance.

The UH and UHS staff will be represented by General Counselor Dona Hamilton; Vice President/Vice Chancellor for University Advancement Ileana Trevino; the assistant vice president/vice chancellor for academic and faculty affairs, David Bell; Peggy Cervenka, the executive administrator for the Board of Regents; and Abel Garza, the executive director for affirmative action and equal employment opportunities.

In addition to the staff members who work for both UH and the UH System, the other System universities will be represented by UH-Clear Lake President William Staples and UH-Downtown Faculty Senate President Nell Sullivan.

Sonny Messiah-Jiles, the chairwoman of the Houston Alumni Organization, will represent alumni. She is also representing the Houston community through her position as publisher of the Houston Defender.

Other representatives from the Houston community are Charles "Ted" Bauer, the former chairman of Aim Management Group Inc., whose sizeable donations to UH have made him the namesake of the Bauer College of Business; J. Downey Bridgwater, the president of Sterling Bank; and Rob Mosbacher, the president of Mosbacher Energy Company.

The committee will meet for the first time at 5 p.m. Tuesday in the Athletic/Alumni Center.

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