Committee closes in on presidential pick

The University at Albany Presidential Search Committee and representatives of the UAlbany community interviewed five candidates over the past two weeks in what could be the end of a two-year search for a new leader, a source close to the interview process said.

About two dozen faculty, staff, students and alumni met in secret at the SUNY administration building in downtown Albany with each of the candidates, the source said. Under strict conditions of confidentiality, each candidate was then interviewed for about an hour, after which the interviewers filled out a survey and gave a short summary of what they thought of each candidate to the search committee.

The source, who requested anonymity because of the confidentiallity agreement, confirmed the following people are candidates and were interviewed for the position:

• Beheruz N. Sethna, president of the University of West Georgia

• David L. Felten, vice president for research and medical director of the Beaumont Research Institute in Royal Oak, Michigan

• Richard H. Wells, chancellor of the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh

• Barbara Couture, senior vice chancellor for academic affairs at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln

• Ronald M. Berkman, executive vice president and provost for academic affairs at Florida International University

The search committee will use the information from the interviews to make a recommendation to the University Council. The council will then make a recommendation to the SUNY chancellor and board of trustees, who will make the final decision.

The source did not know when the committee will make its recommendation. "We could hear this week, or this month. I expect the search committee and University Council has already made a recommendation and forwarded it to SUNY."

"Beheruz Sethna was a hands down favorite among some of the different groups of people that met all [the] candidates, including myself," the source said. "After that, there was no clear 2nd, 3rd, 4th [or] 5th choice."

UAlbany spokesman Karl Luntta would not comment on the candidates or the presidential search.

"The committee is following a process that is consistent with guidelines for a presidential search," he said.

Some of the candidates may drop out because the promise of confidentiality was broken when the Times Union published a list of their names, the source said.

"These candidates interviewed on a condition of confidentiality, and since that has been breached it wouldn't surprise me if some dropped out," the source said. "For example, Felten, Wells and Sethna have very comfortable jobs and don't need this job."

This is the second time in under a year Wells has been a finalist for a university leadership position. In April, he was a finalist for the chancellor position at the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education.

In April 2007, Wells was the subject of controversy when the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel published an article about how Wells and the university encouraged students to use new student identification cards that doubled as debit and ATM cards.

In order to receive the card, students had to open an account with U.S. Bank, who subsequently charged students higher fees than any other local bank, according to the Sentinel Journal. At the time, Wells sat on U.S. Bank's local advisory board.

"I personally really liked Wells and his accomplishments at Oshkosh," the source said. "I felt he was a close second, but others were concerned about this issue."

UAlbany has been without an official president since its 17th president, Kermit Hall, drowned on Aug. 13, 2006 at his vacation home in South Carolina.

After Hall's death, Susan Herbst, UAlbany's provost and vice president for academic affairs, took over as officer in charge until she left for a top administrative job in Georgia's public university system at the end of October 2007.

Current Interim President George Philip was appointed to the position on Nov. 27, 2007 by the SUNY Board of Trustees.