Spring Break
Three named in president search
University's potential leaders to visit campus May 6-8
John Hornberg
Issue date: 4/28/08 Section: News
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The candidates will visit campus during the middle of next week prior to being interviewed by the Board of Trustees on May 12, according to a news release put out by the CSU. The board is expected to have its decision later that week.
The finalists include two out-of-state candidates and one candidate from California.
One of those candidates, Elizabeth Grobsmith, currently works as provost and vice president of academic affairs at Northern Arizona University. Prior to that, she worked at Utah State University, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, and University of Nebraska.
Jon Whitmore, another candidate for president, is the current president and a theater professor at Texas Tech University, positions he has held since 2003.
He has worked as a college administrator at five different universities since 1974 and as a professor of theater at four of them.
Only one candidate - Eduardo Ochoa - has any experience in the CSU system, in which he has worked for the past five years. He currently serves as provost and vice president of academic affairs at Sonoma State University and previously worked at Cal Poly Pomona and Cal State Los Angeles.
The three candidates' first official public appearances are scheduled for May 6 through May 8, during which each of the prospects will spend a day on campus, said media relations specialist Pat Lopes Harris.
Grobsmith will visit campus May 6, with Whitmore visiting the following day and Ochoa the day after that.
Open public forums with each candidate are also scheduled for the three days from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m. in the Engineering Building, Room 189.
Meanwhile, current SJSU President Kassing is serving the remaining months of his term, which ends with the Spring semester, while the selection process will be finalized.
The selection of a new president will mark the end of Kassing's tenure, which began August 2004, as the head of SJSU administration. Kassing entered office as acting president, replacing then-newly elected President Paul Yu, who abruptly resigned for health reasons.
Kassing's legacy as SJSU president is likely to be marked by the erection and completion of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library - a project on which the university worked with the city of San Jose - along with the building of the Campus Village student and faculty residences. Most recent, however, is Kassing's decision to suspend all blood drives on campus - an act in defiance of an FDA policy that prohibits men who have had sex with other men from donating blood but in accordance with SJSU's nondiscrimination policy.
Read the Spartan Daily in print and online for further updates on the presidential selection process.
Kevin Rand contributed to this report.
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