PANAMA CITY — The search for a new Gulf Coast State College president is moving on schedule, officials said Thursday.
Since current president Jim Kerley announced his resignation effective July 31, a presidential search committee has a list of 11 prospective presidents, one of whom could be selected for the post by May 15.
“I feel very confident that it’s going forward as planned and I think it’s going to produce excellent results,” Ralph Roberson, chairman of the college’s Board of Trustees, said at Thursday’s Board of Trustees meeting. “We already have quite a few excellent candidates in the pool; we know we’re going to have good strong final candidates to choose from.”
Names will be narrowed to no more than six at a March 27 Presidential Search Committee meeting, and those names will be brought before the Board of Trustees for approval at its April 10 meeting in the William C. Cramer Jr. Seminar Room (Room 306) in the Student Union West building at the Gulf Coast State College.
Although the May 15 timeline is tentative for choosing a new president, the college will select its new president around that time, Roberson said.
STEM building push underway
Also at Thursday’s meeting, trustees learned about one way the college has prepared to get legislative approval for funding of the college’s new STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) building.
In an attempt to avoid being turned down by the state for second time, the latest version of the four-story, roughly $35 million STEM building once envisioned by college administration was shown in a presentation as a scaled-down, two-story building that costs about $18.8 million.
Trustees did not vote on the building design Thursday. A vote will take place at the April 10 meeting.
“I think it’s a reality check to push it down to two stories and I think that we have a very good shot getting” it, Kerley said. “We should get the funding — some funding this year — and then be high on the list next year to maybe finish it out.
“I hope the governor approves it, as well as the Legislature,” he added.
Trustee David Warriner has traveled to speak with state officials about the building. He said, so far, it’s looking good.
“Right now, I think we’ve made the case that it’s a necessary building, one that we have to replace sooner than later,” Warriner said. By scaling it down, “hopefully we can take it to the next step.”
“They’re in session right now; they’re talking about this stuff, so we need to get back over there and show them this plan and what we’re doing,” Warriner said.
One aim of the new building would be to bring all math and sciences into one building. However, at a smaller size, some of those classes will not fit into the new STEM building.
Math classes at the college are scattered throughout the campus and the current science building, built in 1959, is outdated, officials said. Rusted piping, inadequate chemical storage areas and outdated technology plague the building, they added.
“It’s horrible,” Kerley said, “and no one really should be able to guess do we need this or not.”
