4 finalists announced for UM president post

BANGOR – University of Maine interim President Robert Kennedy is among four finalists picked by a search committee looking for the next president of the flagship campus.

Also named as finalists Tuesday were P. Geoffrey Feiss, provost of the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va.; Brian L. Foster, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque; and Mary Ann Rankin, dean of the College of Natural Sciences at the University of Texas-Austin.

Announced by University of Maine System Chancellor Joseph Westphal, the finalists were selected by a 12-member committee that reviewed more than 50 applications during a nationwide search process that began last fall.

UMS spokesman John Diamond said the candidates would visit UM, he hoped, before the end of April for a series of open meetings with faculty, students, alumni representatives, the board of visitors and members of the public.

Reached by telephone on Tuesday, the candidates discussed their backgrounds, their interest in the job, and some of their priorities.

. Brian Foster, 66, an anthropologist, earned a bachelor’s degree from Northern Illinois University and master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Michigan.

He has held administrative and faculty positions at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Arizona State University and the State University of New York-Binghamton.

Interested in UM because of its land grant status and its mission to provide access to higher education, Foster is a first-generation college student who was in his late 20s when he attended undergraduate school. “I can really relate to the idea of providing access to people who traditionally wouldn’t have gone to school 20 or 30 years ago,” he said.

UM’s good reputation can be enhanced even more, according to Foster who said one of his priorities is to “position the university nationally” – something that’s vital for a research university.

. A biologist, P. Geoffrey Feiss, 62, received a bachelor’s degree from Princeton University and master’s and doctoral degrees from Harvard University.

He has held administrative and faculty positions at the College of William and Mary and at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Feiss wants to focus on strengthening faculty, ensuring students graduate “in a timely manner,” articulating the university’s mission to the public, and fund raising.

He looks forward to talking with faculty and students about implementing the strategic plans for both the system and the campus. Strategic plans help universities understand their strengths and weaknesses, he said. “Institutions need to understand what it is they’re good at and not try to do everything,” he said.

. Robert Kennedy, 58, is a plant biologist who received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, and a doctoral degree from the University of California, Berkeley.

Former executive vice president and provost at UM, Kennedy has held other administrative and faculty positions at Texas A&M University, the University of Maryland, Ohio State University and Washington State University. He served as a program director for the National Science Foundation in Washington, D.C.

Kennedy said he looks forward to building on the progress he has made as interim president, enhancing the university’s national recognition, increasing engagement with the community, and fostering the university’s role in economic development.

Those goals “have served us very well this year and provide a springboard for the short-term future for the university,” said Kennedy, who has toured the state, talking to legislators, businesspeople and alumni.

Kennedy said the strategic plan that he helped create as provost has been “critical” in developing a direction for the university.

. Mary Ann Rankin, 60, is a biologist who received a bachelor’s degree from Louisiana State University in New Orleans and a doctoral degree from the University of Iowa.

She has held other administrative and faculty positions at UT-Austin and has been a research scientist at Marine Biological Laboratories at Woods Hole, Mass.

Coming from UT-Austin with an enrollment of 49,000, Rankin said she likes that UM is a small enough university that the president “can be in touch” with faculty and students.

Although she hasn’t held a top-level administrative position before, Rankin said her experience as head of the college of natural sciences should stand her in good stead.

With 8,600 undergraduates and 1,600 graduate students, the college is almost the size of UM and has a budget that’s larger than that of the Orono campus, she pointed out.

Rankin looks forward to exploring the opportunities at UM for improving the state’s economic situation and attracting students from across the country.