Adams vetoes University Council's provost input

What was supposed to be just another Executive Committee meeting yesterday turned into an opportunity to push along a story about the provost search at UGA.

Last month the University Council passed a motion which would effectively give it a larger role in the provost hiring decision. UGA President Michael Adams immediately expressed that he did not agree with the decision, a four-part proposal with the final part calling for a recorded vote by the council on their pick for provost.

At the committee meeting yesterday, the chair read a letter dated April 1 from Adams stating that he had decided to veto the council's decision. Adams cited Georgia's "stringent open records law" as his main reason for vetoing the motion.

Click here to read my article on Adams's decision to veto the council's motion.

No clear candidate yet as provost search persists

The University of Georgia's No. 2 administrator will be stepping down at the end of this calendar year. UGA President Michael Adams announced the retirement of Arnett Mace as provost in January and the search for a replacement has just begun.

I sat down the the chair of the search committee to find out how the search will be conducted and what types of people they are looking for to fill the position.

Click here to read my article about UGA's provost search.

Univ. Council votes to have greater say in hiring provost

In January, UGA's president announced that the provost would be retiring this year. At the time of the announcement, he said there were no specific candidates in mind to replace the current provost.

It's been about two months since the announcement and after Thursday's University Council meeting, it appears that faculty and students may have a larger say in the decision than they have in previous provost hirings.

President Adams outlined his plan for the new provost hiring process at the beginning of the Council meeting Thursday afternoon, saying he hoped it would be managed in the same manner as the previous two hirings for the position. He has appointed a chair of a provost search committee and Adams said that committee would find three to five qualified candidates to bring to campus for an in-depth interview process.

Part of that interview process included meeting with University Council leadership, but not necessarily the entire body.

When the floor was opened for new business, one Council member proposed adding an item to the agenda which would essentially give the Council more say in the hiring decision. The Council voted to add the item to the agenda and then in a 2-to-1 vote, approved the item.

Immediately following the approval of the item, Adams told the Council he felt it was an "ill-informed decision" and that he would give the item some thought, because he was thinking about vetoing it.

This is a story that I will be following pretty closely for the rest of the semester.

Click here to read the article about the University Council meeting Thursday afternoon.

Adams announces provost's retirement

University of Georgia President Michael Adams gave his annual State of the University address yesterday afternoon at a crowded Chapel. Adams touched on some very important issues surrounding the university right now, hitting hard on budget cuts. Near the end of his address he announced Arnett Mace, senior vice president for academic affairs and provost, will retire at the end of the calendar year. Click here to find out more about Adams' speech and the announcement that Mace will retire.

As a side note, this was the first time I've ever cut audio, and must say that I am impressed at how easily I caught on. I fought with the computer for about an hour because the WMA file wouldn't convert to MP3, and ended up having to get a little crafty to get it to work so I could put it into Audacity. I'm glad I stuck with it though because now I have a new skill and readers can hear Adams' words in addition to reading them.