Samford Committee Launches National Search
Samford University’s presidential search committee has launched a national search for the University’s next president.
Current president Thomas E. Corts has announced plans to retire by the end of the 2005-06 academic year.
A series of advertisements in professional journals and denominational publications ran during a four-week period in late June and early July, with additional Web listings through several major national organizations, according to Sarah Latham, Samford’s director of institutional research and secretary of the Presidential Search Committee.
Among the national publications and Websites where the committee has advertised are the Chronicle of Higher Education, Council for Advancement and Support of Education, the Association of Southern Baptist Colleges and Schools, Baptists Today and Christianity Today. The committee also advertised in several state Baptist publications.
Additionally, committee co-chairs Albert Brewer and Hobart Grooms have sent personalized letters to several groups soliciting nominations and input for the search committee. Brewer, a former Alabama governor, is retired from the Samford law faculty. Grooms, a member of the University’s board of trustees, is a Birmingham attorney.
Letters were mailed to chief executive officers and chief academic officers of Baptist colleges and universities, as well as other peer institutions across the United States. Samford’s major donors, faculty and staff also were invited by letter to participate in the nomination process, as were key community leaders in Birmingham. Nominations from alumni and other friends of the University were solicited through the Samford’s Web site and alumni magazine, Latham said, as the committee tried to involve as many constituents as possible in the process.
The committee has begun to receive nominations, Latham said, but no deadline has been set yet for closing the nomination process. Nominations should be submitted in writing to the search committee at P.O. Box 590145, Birmingham, AL 35259.
The 17-member search committee was named in April and had an initial meeting in mid-May. The committee is scheduled to meet again July 15-16.