The Savannah State University Presidential Search Committee met for the first time on Thursday, July 18 on the SSU campus to establish goals, timelines, procedures and more as the group began the process for finding a full-time President to lead the historically Black university. University System of Georgia (USG) Chancellor Sonny Perdue was in attendance, as was a representative from AGB Search, a firm hired to bring in applicants for the committee to consider before they settle on a group of three to five finalists.

Every committee member spoke during the 67-minute session. Among the new details to emerge included the launch of a website dedicated to the search to keep the public informed and allow for their input, as well as the scheduling of an Aug. 29 “listening session” with committee members, SSU students, alums, and faculty members exchanging thoughts and updates on the search. The listening session will take place on the Savannah State campus.

“Your role as a committee member is not to find the best president for you. It is not to find the best president for the alumni, or for the faculty,” said USG Vice Chancellor Ashley May, committee member and staff liaison. “Your role is to find the best president for Savannah State University. That is this committee’s only goal moving forward.”

The Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia (BOR) selected the committee’s 12 members and announced them on June 13, 2024. Five of them are Regents.
There are two former City of Savannah Mayors among the dozen, as well as the SSU student president, the SSU faculty senate president, and the Savannah State University Alumni Association (SSUAA) president. Committee members are:

• Regent Patrick Jones, committee chair
• Regent Everett Kennedy III
• Regent and Board Chairman Harold Reynolds
• Regent T. Dallas Smith
• Bert Brantley, president, Savannah Chamber of Commerce
• Katelyn Green, president, SSU Student Government Association
• State Rep. Edna Jackson, member, SSU Foundation; alumna
• Otis Johnson, Ph.D.; former mayor, Savannah; professor emeritus; retired dean, SSU’s College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences
• Philip Omunga, Ph.D.; president, SSU Faculty Senate; associate professor, SSU’s College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences
• Harold Washington, president, SSU National Alumni Association
• Ann Levett, Ph.D.; retired superintendent, Savannah-Chatham County Public School System
• Ashley May, vice chancellor of external affairs and chief of staff, USG

At Thursday’s meeting, only Kennedy III was absent (medical), and Levett attended via video conference. Johnson and Jackson are former Savannah Mayors and Jackson is an SSU graduate now serving in the Georgia House of Representatives. A highlight came from Johnson, who said “the people who care about this university expect a President, and I know it’s asking too much, but we expect someone who can walk on water.”

“I don’t know about walking on water,” Perdue said jokingly later. “But maybe when he comes back down, we can get him in here.”

“We’re still reeling from the indigestion of consolidation in this area,” he continued in reference to Georgia Southern University’s merger with Savannah’s Armstrong State University (now GSU at Savannah campus). “But we are going to move forward.”

He denied longtime, unsubstantiated rumors—that had not been raised prior during the meeting—that SSU could wind up with a similar fate as that of Armstrong State.

“Savannah State is not going anywhere but up.”

Interim SSU President Cynthia Robinson Alexander has held her role since July 1, 2023. She was a former USG employee who was tabbed by the BOR and Perdue to replace previous President Kimberly Ballard-Washington. Ballard-Washington was an Interim President at SSU for two years following Cheryl Dozier’s retirement announcement in January 2019. In May 2021, she was named the full-time President by USG following a search committee process that began in 2020.

“We need someone to provide stability, a resilient leader,” said Omunga. “I’ve gone through three presidents in my seven years here and it has cost us and caused us to lose momentum.”

AGB Search was represented at the meeting by Gwen Boyd, the former President of Alabama State University now with the search firm. She said the committee will see and read every application that comes  in, and she estimated anywhere between 30-80 applicants would be in the pool of candidates. Boyd said most searches have “your A, B, and C candidates.”

“Every application will come through the AGB portal and you will have access to that. The ‘A’ pool are those who meet every criteria you’ve given us. They are a match on every desired trait in the profile you create. Everything goes back to that profile. Then you have your ‘B’ group who have some of those characteristics. The ‘C’ group, we like to say they will apply for every job.”

She and May agreed that a reasonable timeline to make a hire could be anywhere from six to eight months. Ultimately, when the committee selects its three to five candidates to be finalists, they will stop being involved.

“Once this group presents its candidates to be finalists, that  extinguishes your responsibility,” Perdue said. “I’m not technically on this (committee), but I’m here because this is one of the most important jobs we have.”

The website dedicated to the search was launched on Friday, July 19.

“I would direct anyone who asks you about the search to that website,” said May. “It will answer most of those questions about timelines and procedure. But we will not be releasing the names of the three to five finalists for confidentiality purposes. That will happen once we have settled on a sole finalist.”

Every member of the committee signed a confidentiality agreement and they were directed to avoid speaking to media about the candidates being considered. Connect Savannah was not permitted to record the audio of the meeting and was not given a copy of the confidentiality agreement.

This article appears in Connect Savannah I July 2024.