TCC Regents Name Search Committee and Set December Public Meetings

Tulsa Community College Board of Regents voted Nov. 14 to authorize the hiring of a search consultant for a new president to succeed current President Thomas K. McKeon when he retires July 1, 2014. The Regents also named the members of the Presidential Search Committee who will take part in the nationwide search and selection process.

The presidential search process begins with a series of public forums on Dec. 4 and Dec. 5 to gather input from TCC staff, TCC faculty and Tulsa County residents on the development of the Presidential Search Profile. TCC established a webpage, www.tulsacc.edu/presidentialsearch, to keep the community updated on the presidential search and to list the forum times and locations.

McKeon announced his retirement at the October TCC Board of Regents meeting. He is only the third president in the history of TCC and began his career in higher education at TCC when it was known as Tulsa Junior College. McKeon led many of the College’s significant administrative and process improvements with a strong focus on student access and academic excellence. Today the College has more than 28,000 students enrolled in credit classes annually compared to 2,796 students when the College opened in 1970. In May, TCC had the largest number of graduates in its 43-year history. Today TCC offers more online degrees and enrolls more concurrent students than any college or university in the state.

“The TCC Board of Regents and Presidential Search Committee will seek the community’s valuable insight and input into the future direction of the College and the ideal characteristics of a new president,” said TCC Board of Regents Chair Ron Looney. “The Presidential Profile will be used as the foundation of a broad, inclusive, transparent national search to attract the very best candidate to be the new president of Tulsa Community College.”

Looney hopes the TCC Regents will have the selection process completed and a new TCC President named by late spring 2014.

The Presidential Search Committee will be responsible for reviewing prospective presidential candidates, interviewing six to eight semifinal candidates, and forwarding three to five final candidates to the full Board of Regents for consideration. In addition, the final candidates would participate in open public forums in the spring at TCC as part of the final interview process.

The Presidential Search Committee reflects a cross section of the Tulsa metro area from TCC Regents, faculty, staff and students to representatives from the Tulsa community. The members of the committee are Ron Looney, TCC Board of Regents Chair; Bill McKamey, TCC Regent; Paul Cornell, TCC Regent; Mary Cantrell, TCC Faculty Association President; Pam Chew, TCC Associate Professor of Foreign Languages; Terry Jacobs-Davis, College Staff Council Chair; Dr. Jan Clayton, TCC Associate Vice President for Student Affairs; Dr. Mike Limas, Academic & Campus Services Director; Larry Mocha, Air Power Systems Co., Inc. President and TCC Foundation; Karen Gilbert, Tulsa City Councilor; Mary Shaw, TCC Foundation Chair; Shane Fernandez, Executive Vice President, Crafton Tull Architects and TCC Foundation; and Serena Poteete, TCC Student.

TCC is the third largest college or university in the state and the largest community college. The college ranks in the top two percent nationally with its number of annual graduates. It’s faculty to student ratio is 1:20 and it has more than 300 full-time faculty, more than 780 part-time faculty and 660 full-time employees. It offers 154 individual associate degree programs and 74 credit-bearing certificate programs.