STEVENS POINT, WI (WSAU) — Finalists have been announced for the open Chancellor positon at UW- Stevens Point.
Monday afternoon UW System President Tommy Thompson announced the four finalists for the position of chancellor at UW-Stevens Point. The four finalists are, Deborah Bordelon the Provost and Executive Vice President at Columbus State University in Columbus, Georgia, Jeanine Gangeness the Associate Vice President and the Administrator for Winona State University’s Rochester branch campus, Thomas Gibson the Vice President for Student Affairs and Vice Provost at Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green Ohio, and Katy Heyning, the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs at SUNY Brockport in Brockport New York.
UWSP Professor of English and the Vice-Chair of the Chancellor Search Committee Mary Bowman says all four candidates are high caliber and stood out to the committee for a common reason. “This ability to address a wide range of the issues that a Chancellor needs to be on top of. The Chancellor deals with everything academic, to student life to the fundraising, to working with the regents, working with the legislature. These folks all gave great answers to questions on a wide variety of issues.”
Later in September and early October, all four finalists will visit the UWSP campus to see the area, interact with students and staff, and take questions from the community. Bowman says the usual open forum portion of the visit will work differently this time with the pandemic.
“They’ll do a kind of townhall style over Zoom where people can send in questions ahead of time or send questions live during the session. The candidate will be at a computer giving a presentation and then fielding the questions. Someone else will be at a different computer kind of moderating the questions. And folks can watch that live or we’ll be recording the sessions for people who can’t watch it live. And there will be some face-to-face meetings in small groups. We’re trying to get as much face-to-face time as possible while still being safe.”
Once visits from the four finalists have concluded in October, there will be a couple more steps in the process. After a review of campus feedback, the Special Regent Committee will interview finalists and select a candidate to forward to the full Board of Regents. The Regents will then approve the appointment and announce it at their scheduled meeting on November 5th.
Updates on the Chancellor search process can be found on UWSP’s website at their Chancellor Search web page.
The person selected for the position will be UW-Stevens Points, 15th Chancellor. Current Chancellor Bernie Patterson announced his retirement from the position in March of 2020 shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic hit the country. Patterson has served in the position since July of 2010 and formally retires in December.
