Cal U. trustees recommend two for president’s post
Geraldine M. Jones and Ralph Rogers
Interim president of California University of Pennsylvania Geraldine M. Jones and her husband, Jeffrey Jones, are pictured at the president’s residence.
Dr. Ralph Rogers
CALIFORNIA – The search for a new California University of Pennsylvania president was narrowed down Tuesday to two candidates, one of whom has been the school’s interim president for the past four years.
The university’s trustees at a special meeting agreed to recommend interim President Geraldine M. Jones and Ralph Rogers, provost of Nova Southeastern University in Florida, for interviews for the position next week before the state System of Higher Education.
Larry Maggi, chairman of the Cal U. trustees, said the presidential search has been time-consuming and it’s “probably one of the most important” decisions his board has had to make.
The state system’s board of governors likely will schedule a special meeting within seven to 10 days after final interviews are conducted next week to name one of the candidates president of Cal U., said Kenn Marshall, state system spokesman in Harrisburg.
Maggi, who also is chairman of Washington County commissioners, was not available to speak to a reporter following the meeting, and the door was soon locked at the Cal U.’s president’s offices where the meeting was held.
When contacted later, Maggi said the search committee on campus did not recommend Jones for the job. The committee included faculty at the table and was chaired by attorney James Davis, a trustee and Uniontown attorney.
Jones and Rogers were among three candidates who were interviewed on campus for the position before the search committee was charged with recommending two of them to the trustees to forward on to the final interviews. Guiyou Huang, senior vice president for academic affairs at Norwich University in Northfield, Vt., was the third applicant to be interviewed for the position at Cal U.
Maggi said the search committee recommended Huang and Rogers for interviews before the state system.
Jones was named acting Cal U. president May 2012 following the firing of former president Angelo Armenti Jr. The state system later named her interim president, indicating it was not in a rush to seat a new Cal U. president.
Jones was involved in creating the school’s 2015-20 strategic plan and she has made difficult decisions, including furloughing employees and making spending cuts to address budgetary shortfalls. The university also launched its first doctoral program during her presidency.
The Cal U. faculty was preparing to hold no-confidence votes in Jones and the trustees this month, but it opted to postpone them in advance of the campus interviews of the candidates for president.
At Nova in Fort Lauderdale, Rogers has been responsible for overseeing academic and budgetary planning and priorities. Early in his career, he was the founding dean of the College of Technology and Computer Science at East Carolina University in Greenville, N.C.