President Robert Zeigler listens to results of a bond sale at Tuesday’s regular board meeting. Photo by Melissa Perreault
By Cassandra Rodriguez
crodriguez719@alamo.edu
After 12 years of leading this college, President Robert Zeigler is set to retire at the beginning of the summer.
A search committee will select potential candidates for the presidency of this college with the new president expected to start in fall 2014.
“Everyone is anxious to get the search process under way so that we can get somebody on board in time for next fall,” said Linda Boyer-Owens, associate vice chancellor of human resources and organizational development.
Gold Hill Associates, a search firm specializing in community college presidential searches, has a contract with this district to assist Chancellor Bruce Leslie and the search committee to find prospective candidates for this college.
Dr. J. Parker Chesson Jr., Gold Hill Associates search team member, will help the committee by reviewing applications, advertising the position, recruiting candidates and conducting detailed reference checks.
“It is very important to recognize that I work with the search committee. I am advisory only,” he said.
Recently, he advised Northeast Lakeview College’s search committee in the selection of Craig Follins, who begins as president in March. He also advised Palo Alto College with their selection of Dr. Michael Flores as the president in 2012.
Leslie will choose a candidate from the committee’s recommendations and then recommend his choice to the board.
Faculty discussed at the Feb. 5 Faculty Senate meeting concerns about the president search committee and questioned what kind of representation there will be on the committee.
English Professor Alex Bernal asked whether there will be senate, chair, staff and student representation on the search committee.
“There must be adequate representation on the committee,” Dawn Elmore, Faculty Senate president, said Feb. 5.
In the past, the search committee went to the senate president and Staff Council asking for faculty and staff recommendations, Elmore said.
The search process is estimated to take four to six months.
“I’d like for the next president to view this job as not something to fulfill a personal ambition. But rather something to fulfill a service, a service to the community and a service to the students,” Zeigler said during an interview in January.
Boyer-Owens said students and faculty will have the opportunity to meet candidates when the search committee narrows the selection.
