BOARD OF VISITORS ANNOUNCES PLANS FOR APPOINTMENTS TO PRESIDENTIAL SEARCH COMMITTEE
The Board of Visitors appointed a presidential search committee at its fall semester meeting on Oct. 4. The meeting had been rescheduled from Sept. 16 due to the threat of inclement weather from Hurricane Floyd.
The Presidential Transition and Search Committee will ultimately select a short list of candidates in the process to find a successor to President James V. Koch, who announced earlier this year that he plans to step down from the presidency on July 1, 2001. The committee will include the officers and standing committee chairs of the Board of Visitors, as well as
six former rectors.
Current members of the board serving on the committee are: Edward L. Hamm Jr., rector; Lawrie Falck Rollison, vice rector; Patricia W. Perry, secretary and chair of the Institutional Advancement Committee; Lois S. Williams, chair of the Academic Affairs Committee; the Rev. Anthony C. Paige, chair of the Administration and Finance Committee; and Nancy P. Cheng, chair of the Student Affairs Committee. (Rollison and Perry were elected vice rector and secretary, respectively, at the Oct. 4 meeting.)
Former rectors serving on the search committee will be James F. Babcock, Arthur A. Diamonstein, George Dragas Jr., James K. Hall, Arnold B. McKinnon and Anne B. Shumadine.
In addition, Hamm said, the board's Academic Affairs Committee and Student Affairs Committee will be asked to appoint one faculty member and one student member, respectively, at a later date.
The search committee will select a consulting firm later this fall to aid in the process of finding a new leader for Old Dominion. Proposals from consulting firms are due to the board by Oct. 20. The final decision on a successor to Koch will be the responsibility of the Board of Visitors.
Board member Ronald John A. Villanueva recommended at the meeting that the search committee seek input from the community and alumni "to give them a sense of ownership."
In other matters, the board completed its annual evaluation of President Koch. Hamm characterized the evaluation as being "very, very good, as it has been in the past," and said Koch turned in "an 'A' performance" over the past year.
The board also passed a resolution for presidential compensation of a base salary of $240,583 and a one-time bonus of $9,583 for the period Nov. 25, 1999, through Nov. 24, 2000.
In other action, the board approved the appointment and award of tenure to James G. Sanders in the Department of Ocean, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, effective Oct. 25. Sanders comes to Old Dominion from The Academy of Natural Sciences' Estuarine Research Center, where he has served as a faculty member since 1981 and center director since 1983. His research interests focus on trace element biogeochemistry in estuaries and the coastal ocean.
The board also approved granting the title of Emeritus to Donald P. Ogdon, professor of psychology. Ogdon joined the Old Dominion faculty in 1963, and has had a continuing relationship with the psychology department since his retirement in 1976, teaching regularly as an adjunct professor.
In addition, the board approved 39 faculty appointments, three TELETECHNET site director appointments and a resolution authorizing special salary supplements for 28 eminent scholars.
In other matters, President Koch reported that final figures due later this semester should place fall enrollment between 18,700 and 18,800 students. Also, David F. Harnage, vice president for administration and finance, reported to the Administration and Finance Committee that all but 11 of the 72 parcels of land needed for construction of the University Village project have been acquired or are nearing the acquisition stage. The first development in the Village, the Ted Constant Convocation Center
and two supporting parking garages, should be open by November 2001,
Harnage said.