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Four presidential nominees named

Kennedy among final candidates, remaining three set to visit Orono

Posted on March 17, 2005, at 12:00 a.m.

Four finalists for the University of Maine presidency were announced Tuesday morning in Bangor by University of Maine System Chancellor Joseph Westphal. A search committee, consisting of one University of Maine student eleven academic and business professionals, selected the four after a five-month, nationwide search. All four candidates will soon arrive in Orono for tours and meetings with various campus members. After the visits, Westphal will select one individual to recommend to the UMS board of trustees, who will have final say over the appoitment.

The candidates come from all over the country and all four have extensive backgrounds in science.

P. Geoffrey Feiss, the current provost of the College of Williams and Mary and a geologist by training, received his Ph.D. from Princeton University. He is retired from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and in his professional career served as an exploration geologist.

Brian Foster is the provost and executive vice president for academic affairs at the University of New Mexico. He is an anthropologist by training and received his Ph.D. in that discipline from the University of Michigan. He has taught at Arizona State University and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, among others, and is a former insurance salesman.

Robert Kennedy is the current interim president of the University of Maine. Prior to his current position, he was the provost for the university. He received his Ph.D. in botany from the University of California-Berkeley.

He has taught or served on the administration at the University of Maryland, Ohio State University, Washington State University, Texas A&M University and the University of Iowa.

A former member of the U.S. military, Kennedy served as a program director for the National Science Foundation.

Mary Ann Rankin is the dean of the College of Natural Sciences at the University of Texas-Austin. She received her Ph.D. in physiology and behavior from the University of Iowa and is a biologist by training.

The former chair of UT-Austin’s Division of Biological Sciences, Rankin spent time in New England at the Marine Biological Laboratories in Woods Hole, Mass.

The UMaine president is responsible for overseeing the universities six colleges, 508 full-time faculty, 11,300 students and numerous buildings.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 17th, 2005, 12:00 am. You can follow any responses to this article through the RSS feed.