2theadvocate.com April 5, 2911 Southern lists five finalists for chancellor<http://www.2theadvocate.com/blogs/politicsblog/119263254.html> The Southern University chancellor search committee decided Tuesday to invite five semifinalists to campus for interviews starting April 18. The top five were led by Savannah State University President Earl Yarbrough of Georgia, who was ranked the highest in an on-paper scoring evaluation of the 10 best applicants as decided by Chicago-based search firm DHR International. The other four invited for interviews, in order of their rankings, are: -Belinda Childress Anderson, former president of Virginia Union University. -James Llorens, the former Southern dean of graduate studies and the current assistant chief administrative officer to Mayor Kip Holden. -Robert Jennings, former president of Alabama A&M University. -Walter Kimbrough, president of Philander Smith College in Arkansas. Anderson, Llorens and Jennings have been considered for top Southern jobs in the past. The search committee voted 12-2 to invite the top five scorers. Because of criticisms about the search firm deciding the top 10 candidates out of 24 formal applicants, the search committee decided to open the process up more to allow more people to potentially join the five semifinalists. Some faculty, alumni and search committee members were upset they were not allowed to consider more of the other applicants. So, after much debate, the search committee opted to allow employees, students and alumni to recommend other potential candidates. "We're still negotiating" how that will work out, said search committee co-chairman Pat Magee. "The process has to have some kind of integrity, so we can move away from the perception that we're doing backroom deals," Magee said. Magee also emphasized that the "scores will not determine the ultimate outcome." Eventually, the search committee will recommend up to top three top choices to Southern University System President Ronald Mason Jr., who will then submit his final choice to the Southern Board of Supervisors. SANDRA M. PHOENIX Program Director HBCU Library Alliance sphoenix@hbculibraries.org<mailto:sphoenix@hbculibraries.org> www.hbculibraries.org<http://www.hbculibraries.org/> 404.592.4820 Skype:sandra.phoenix1 1438 West Peachtree Street NW Suite 200 Atlanta, GA 30309 Toll Free: 1.800.999.8558 (Lyrasis) Fax: 404.892.7879 www.lyrasis.org<http://www.lyrasis.org/> Honor the ancestors, honor the children.