PORTLAND, Maine — The University of Maine System on Tuesday morning announced the three finalists vying to take the helm of the beleaguered University of Southern Maine.
Harvey Kesselman, provost and executive vice president at The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey; Jose “Zito” Sartarelli, chief global officer and the Milan Puskar Dean of the College of Business and Economics at West Virginia University; and Glenn Cummings, interim president of the University of Maine at Augusta, were chosen from a field of 80 candidates, according to the system.
All three candidates will visit USM for two days in early February, according to the system. They were selected by an 18-member presidential search committee made up of system trustees and staff, university staff and students.
“The talent, diversity, size and enthusiasm of the applicant pool surpassed our expectations,” said James Erwin, UMS Trustee and chairman of the Presidential Search Committee. “The search committee has selected strong finalists for the job of leading and transforming USM into a metropolitan university that will make it an indispensable partner to the Portland and Lewiston-Auburn regions.”
The selected candidate will replace interim USM President David Flanagan, a former chairman of the system’s board of trustees and retired CEO of Maine Central Power Co. Flanagan took the job last summer two weeks after the former president, Theodora Kalikow, stepped down to take a job at the system office, where she was directed to lead a “community engagement initiative.”
Since taking the job, Flanagan has taken on the difficult, at-times-unpopular task of closing a $16 million budget gap. He was brought in with the intention of filling the gap between the end of Kalikow’s tenure and the completion of the presidential search process. System Chancellor James page has said that a balanced budget will be vital as USM continues its push toward becoming a “metropolitan university.”
The three potential presidents will visit the university for two days each during the coming weeks.
Cummings is filling in at UMA after Allyson Handley resigned the presidency last September to become executive director of the Sanford Education Center at National University in San Diego, California.
The former Speaker of the Maine House of Representatives has a doctorate in higher education management from the University of Pennsylvania. He has worked at USM before as assistant professor of educational leadership. His past jobs also include serving as deputy assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Education and president and executive director of the G.W. Hinckley Foundation and Maine Academy of Natural Sciences.
Kesselman, in addition to his role as provost and executive vice president at Richard Stockton College, has also served as dean of the education school, interim vice president for administration and finance, special assistant to the president and vice president of student affairs at the same school. He has a doctorate degree in higher education administration from Widener University.
Sartarelli has a doctorate in business administration from Michigan State University. Prior to his time at the business school at West Virginia University, he held senior leadership positions at three global businesses, Johnson and Johnson, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Eli Lilly and Company.
The search committee will select one of these three to recommend to Page, who is expected to bring that selection to the full board of trustees in the spring for final approval.
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