College of Charleston announces presidential search committee and transition leadership plan
February 6, 2018
The College of Charleston Board of Trustees met today and named the members of the Presidential Search Committee, which has been charged with identifying and recommending a list of qualified candidates to the full Board of Trustees. The College intends to work with a search firm to select a successor to President Glenn McConnell, who announced last week that he will retire from his position this summer.
The board also adopted motions to accept President McConnell’s plan to retire, effective July 2, 2018, and to name Steve Osborne as interim president of the College of Charleston, effective July 2, 2018. Osborne retired last summer as executive vice president of business affairs at the College of Charleston, but he has remained at the school as a senior advisor to the president.
“The Board of Trustees sincerely appreciates President McConnell’s flexibility and willingness to stay a few months past [July 2, 2018] in an advisory capacity in order to ease the transition, and we will work with him regarding that specific timetable,” Board Chair David Hay said in an e-mail message to the campus community. “An alumnus of the College as well as a highly respected member of the College community, Steve Osborne provides seamless continuity of leadership and has a mastery of the College’s day-to-day operations and finances that will help ensure a smooth transition as we work to identify the 23rd president of the College.”
The search committee will be chaired by Trustee Renee Romberger, an alumna and longtime volunteer leader of the College. The other Presidential Search Committee members are as follows:
- Trustee Demetria Noisette Clemons (Class of 1975)
- Trustee L. Cherry Daniel (Class of 1975)
- Dean Godfrey Gibbison (Dean, School of Professional Studies; Associate Professor of Economics)
- Trustee David Hay (Class of 1981)
- Professor Liz Jurisich (Speaker of the Faculty; Professor of Mathematics)
- Trustee Greg Padgett (Class of 1979)
- Trustee Renee Romberger (Chair, Presidential Search Committee; Class of 1981)
- Trustee Ricci Land Welch (Class of 1992)
Hay also announced that the College will hold a series of listening sessions in late February and early March to give all members of the CofC community an opportunity to give input on the desired characteristics of the College’s next president.
