Whitmore withdraws from presidential race

Dr. Jon Whitmore, one of three candidates vying to be PSU president, withdrew his name from the race Wednesday, two weeks before the State Board of Higher Education planned to make its final selection for the next president.

There are now only two candidates for president: Dr. Wim Wiewel, provost and senior vice president for Academic Affairs at the University of Baltimore and Dr. Kathie Olsen, deputy director and chief operating officer for the National Science Foundation.

Student body President Rudy Soto, a member of the presidential search committee, said

Whitmore’s decision to withdraw makes it so the committee must decide if the search process is flawed because there are fewer candidates to choose from. He said it is, “a discussion that has to be had” when the search committee meets next week.

Whitmore, who is currently President of Texas Tech University, told Oregon University System officials that he determined that the PSU presidency would not be a good fit for him after his visit to campus last week.

“Portland State is a fine university with a bright future. However, our personal leadership interests don’t align appropriately with [the] institution’s most immediate goals and needs,” Whitmore said in a statement from the Oregon University System (OUS).

Whitmore was a latecomer to the yearlong PSU presidential search, joining after he announced on Feb. 1 that he was planning on resigning from his presidential post in Texas. His resignation from Texas Tech will take effect in early 2009.

“It’s not uncommon for a candidate to drop out during this stage of the process. The more candidates you have at this stage, obviously that would be great,” said Di Saunders, director of communications for OUS. “… but you still have a good pool of two folks.”

Soto said Whitmore was a good candidate and it is disappointing to hear that he has pulled out.

“Especially when he’s gone this far into the process to be considered as one of the top three candidates,” he said. “One would hope that somebody applying for the job would come into it with confidence that, once it were to be made public they were considering the job, that they would have genuine interest.”

According to an article published by Texas Tech’s student newspaper, The Daily Toreador, (“Tech President Jon Whitmore resigns,” Feb. 1, 2007), Whitmore stated that he hoped to become a professor at Texas Tech. Under terms of his resignation agreement, the Toreador reports, Whitmore’s compensation would be no less than $210,000 as long as he is a full-time faculty member.

During Whitmore’s PSU visit, he met with students, faculty and administrators and was the subject of an open campus forum where over 200 members of the PSU community came to hear his plans for the university and ask him questions.

The State Board of Higher Education is working on scheduling final interviews with Wiewel and Olsen and hopes to announce their final decision at the boards May 2 meeting.