Millsaps identifies 'quality candidates' for president. See where committee is in process

Finding a replacement for Dr. Robert Pearigan as president of Millsaps College will be a tall order, but a search committee is in the middle of trying to do so.

Dr. Keith Dunn, provost and dean of Millsaps College, has been the interim president since June 1, when Pearigen officially became vice chancellor at The University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. The vice chancellor position at Sewanee is the equivalent of university president.

In the meantime WittKieffer, a search and leadership consulting firm, has put together a list of candidates from which the official Millsaps search committee can search and eventually make a decision.

Pearigen came from the same process more than 10 years ago.

Chuck Lathem, chair of the presidential search committee and vice chair for the school's board of trustees, for Millsaps, said the identifying process is complete, and the committee will now begin to have individual discussions with candidates.

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The committee hopes to complete the process and have a new president named by early 2024, Lathem said. While he wishes the process could be faster, he is pleased with how it is progressing, Lathem said.

"We have had a tremendous outpouring of interest for this position," Lathem said, but he could not reveal the exact number of applicants the school has moving forward. "We have already started reviewing applications. So far, this has all gone smoother than I expected."

He went on to say that the committee will meet in Jackson next week to decide which candidates to call and invite to campus for formal one-on-one interviews.

"The candidate we will find is someone who has a lot of similar goals and interests of the college," Lathem said. "This person will want to be very involved in the community and what is happening in (Mississippi)."

One of the biggest hurdles he said he anticipated when the hiring process began was the negative publicity that Jackson has received in the past couple of years, such as the water crisis, crime rates and the garbage collection crisis.

However, he said the process to this point has brought many high-quality, diverse candidates to choose from.

"We were worried about scaring people away (with bad publicity)," Lathem said. "But people respect the quality of the education that Millsaps puts out. The school has a phenomenal reputation, and I think it is very attractive to a lot of candidates."

There have been many alumni of the school to apply and Lathem said he believes as many as half of the candidiates have some connection to Mississippi, whether it be direct or through marriage or education.

Applicants also include presidents of other colleges as well as senior leadership from other colleges and universities.

"I'm almost worried as to how we will get through the interview process," Lathem said, jokingly, but he said he spent much of the Labor Day weekend going through resumes. "We recognize that not everyone will be qualified, but there are quite a number of very qualified people, and it is very diverse."

A large proportion of the candidates are from schools much like Millsaps that are small, liberal arts schools that fit the description of the school's athletic conference (Southern Athletic Association), he said. Millsaps has an endowment of around $106 million as of May and fewer than 1,000 students.

"I am encouraged. I believe we are going to find a very good candidate, based on the applications we have received," Lathem said. "I think we are going to wind up with a really strong candidate to lead the college forward."

One-on-one interviews will be wrapped up in early November, he said. After that, one or more candidates will be presented to the Millsaps College Board of Trustees.

"I suspect we will have some type of final announcement in early spring," Lathem said, "probably February, but I could see it slipping into March."

Ross Reily can be reached by email at rreily@gannett.com or 601-573-2952. You can follow him on Twitter @GreenOkra1.

This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Millsaps college presidential search moving along smoothly in Jackson MS