Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, January 27, 1995 TAG: 9501270072
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ALLISON BLAKE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RADFORD LENGTH: Medium
Jairy C. Hunter Jr., president of Charleston Southern University in South Carolina, decided to stay put after he received an outpouring of support from people back home. But his candidacy also had come under question at Radford, with some faculty saying the search was not entirely confidential, as agreed on at the outset.
Meantime, Radford's faculty voted 154-5 Thursday to recommend that the Board of Visitors choose Douglas Covington, president of historically black Cheyney University in Pennsylvania, to be the university's next president.
The faculty vote should carry some weight with the presidential search committee, which would go back and find a new finalist if asked, said Karen Waldron, committee chairwoman. Originally, they were to find three finalists, but stopped at their unanimous choices, Covington and Hunter.
``It would suit me just fine to end it right here,'' Waldron said.
Radford's board will meet in early February.
Covington, who became Cheyney's president in 1992, helped turn around the university after 15 years of financial disorder. Last year, it posted a surplus of $575,000, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.
He previously was an assistant to the chancellor for the state university and community college system of Tennessee. He was chancellor of Winston-Salem State University in North Carolina and president of Alabama A&M University. If chosen, Covington would become Radford's first black president.
In an official release issued by Charleston Southern, where he earns more than $137,000 per year, Hunter said he had been persuaded to stay by his university's trustees, alumni and donors. The university is in the middle of a major capital campaign, and ``felt they needed his leadership,'' Waldron said.
In a statement, Hunter said, ``Radford University is an excellent public institution with a challenging and bright future.''
Hunter, known as a sharp fund-raiser who has lifted the status of his small, liberal arts college, was not officially a Radford candidate until Jan. 14. In the days since, concern has grown that the search was not confidential, and some Radford faculty have hinted his candidacy was engineered to his advantage.
But Waldron vigorously defended the committee's work - and pleaded for a stop to ``the rumor mill.'' In a memo sent out across the campus Wednesday, she stated: ``No one involved with this search is steering the members of this university toward either candidate.
``In fact, until the committee sees the evaluations from all constituents, we cannot make a recommendation to the board.''
At an open forum Tuesday, Hunter said he was contacted weeks ago by John Kuhnle, Radford's search consultant, whose firm does many such searches. Hunter agreed to come to the Jan. 14 interview as a consultant. He left as a finalist.
Waldron said she did not know Hunter's identity until the night before he arrived. Neither did other members of the search committee.
However, Hunter is the former boss of Charles King, Radford's vice president for business. King, a search committee member, said this week that he had received a call from Kuhnle about two weeks before Hunter's candidacy was revealed to the committee, alerting him that Hunter was a candidate. Hunter and King worked together several years ago at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington.
Another Radford administrator, Charles Wood, said he had also caught wind of Hunter's candidacy.
Hunter's school competes in the Big South Conference, the same athletic conference in which Radford plays, and Hunter is a consultant who conducts many workshops for university business administrators.
``I'm sorry there was a controversy,'' said Bernard Wampler, rector of the board of visitors. ``Dr. Hunter was a well-qualified candidate of a fine university. The unanimous [vote] of the committee speaks very highly for him.''
The new president's pay remains unknown. Donald Dedmon, Radford's long-time president who resigned last year under pressure from the faculty, earns about $125,000. Officially on sick leave, Dedmon retires in August.
Meanwhile, a legislator whose district used to include Radford, and who last week submitted legislation to revive the school's experimental New College of Global Studies, noted that the school needs leadership - and an end to the year's string of controversies.
``I hope with all my heart that they're able to find a president that everybody can get along with and will carry on the traditions that have existed for the last 10 years there,'' said state Sen. Madison Marye, D-Shawsville.
by CNB