John G. Morgan, chancellor of the Tennessee Board of Regents, will likely make a recommendation this month or next to the regents of who should be the next president of Chattanooga State Community College.
But faculty, staff, students and the public will provide public input. And this past week, they got a chance to see all four finalists for the president's job that was held for 24 years by Jim Catanzaro, who retired at age 77 in December amid controversy.
Each candidate took a turn standing at the front of an auditorium on Chatt State's campus to field questions posed by audience members. Each stressed the importance of communication.
"If you feel like telling me what needs to be fixed, do it," Roger Ramsammy, the provost and chief academic officer at Northern Virginia Community College's Manassas campus, said Friday afternoon in the humanities auditorium.
If hired by Chatt State, he promised he'd offer "15-minute dating with the president," during which he'd listen one-on-one to whatever visitors had to say.
"I don't know the issues like you know them," Ramsammy told the crowd. "In my first 100 days, I have to do the what? The 15-minute dating. It's going to be a lot of listening. You talk to me. I'll just take the notes."
Kevin Pollock, president of St. Clair County Community College in Port Huron, Mich., was the first candidate to visit. He spoke Monday afternoon in the humanities auditorium.
"I do have an open-door policy," Pollock said. "People are scared to come into the president's office. I don't know why. I don't think I'm scary."
Decorations on his office wall include a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles picture signed by his friend from high school who does voices for the cartoon series, and an album by the 1980s-era hair metal band Twisted Sister signed by lead singer Dee Snider, whom Pollock sat next to on an airplane.
"I think a lot of it is just being down-to-earth," Pollock said. "I think you have to be able to meet people and talk to everybody."
Tennessee Promise, Gov. Bill Haslam's new program that guarantees to cover the costs of a two-year college degree for high school seniors, also came up during the interviews.
"Coming from a state that doesn't have the funding, or really the will, to do something like Tennessee Promise, I stand in awe," said Karla Fisher, vice president of academics at Butler Community College in El Dorado, Kan., who spoke Tuesday in Berry Auditorium in the health science center.
"It really ... can open doors for students that wouldn't be here. At the same time ... this kind of program can bring in a population of students that are going to need tremendous support," Fisher said, saying she'd make it a priority to make sure students got the support they need.
"I think it is a great opportunity for the residents of Tennessee," said Flora Tydings, president of Athens Technical College in Athens, Ga. on Wednesday in the humanities auditorium. "It's going to have an impact yet to be seen. We don't really know what that enrollment is going to look like."
Catanzaro came under a fire because he hired Lisa Haynes, a young woman that he met while vacationing in the Barbados, to serve as his de facto second in command, even though she lacked the bachelor's degree required for the job, which included overseeing a staff of 12 employees and an annual budget of about $1.1 million. She was fired in early January by Interim President Warren Nichols on his first day on the job.
Contact staff writer Tim Omarzu at tomarzu @timesfreepress.com or www.facebook.com/tim.omarzu or twitter.com/TimOmarzu or 423-757-6651.