Leader Named for San Marcos CSU Campus

Bill Stacy, the president of Southeast Missouri State University, was named Tuesday to head the new state university in San Marcos.

Stacy’s appointment by the trustees of the state university system surprised and disappointed many persons involved in the four-month search process, because he wasn’t the first choice of either community leaders, faculty, staff or students.

But CSU Chancellor W. Ann Reynolds said Stacy, 50, was the first choice of trustees. Stacy said afterward that that was good enough for him.

One of the top-ranked candidates, Carol Guardo, president of Rhode Island College, abruptly withdrew her name from consideration Sunday night. She could not be reached for comment Monday but was said to have been concerned about the economics of the move to San Diego County.

Other Competitors

Another candidate, Jane Milley, who resigned amid controversy from her post as chancellor of the North Carolina School of the Arts and who was generally considered the weakest of the five finalists for the post, withdrew her name over the weekend.

That left Stacy competing for the post with Paul Weller, president of Framingham State College outside Boston and a former vice president for academic affairs at Cal Poly Pomona, and Victor Wong, vice president for academic affairs at the Flint campus of the University of Michigan.

Stacy himself conceded he was no one’s first choice as president--except the trustees themselves. “I suppose the only ones who wanted me first was the board . . . and I couldn’t have been their first choice without the chancellor saying I was her first choice, and I like those two constituencies pretty strongly,” he said.

“I haven’t been told by any faculty or student group that they have any reservations about me. We’ll have to wait and see. I’ll deal with that as it comes along. I don’t go in with any misgivings. I don’t know that I have anything to prove, or any hard feelings. They were very gracious when they met with me, and we’ll build on that.”

Critical of Trustees

Ken Lounsbery, who chaired the citizens’ advisory committee on the formation of the new university, said community leaders will support Stacy, perhaps begrudgingly, but that greater scorn was directed at the CSU trustees for the selection mechanics.

“The question isn’t whether Bill Stacy will succeed, or whether we’ll fall in behind him and support him, because we all care too much about the future of the university to do otherwise,” Lounsbery said.

“But why do the trustees invite the input of faculty, staff, students and the community, and then methodically ignore the recommendations of each and every one of those quarters which, even with those disparate constituencies, had all agreed on the favorite candidates?” Lounsbery said. “The trustees asked us to commit to a process, and then we were ignored.”

That rebuke was the second to the university’s supporters. Previously, community leaders had asked that the campus remain under the wings of San Diego State University until at least 1995 so that the faculty and students could be recruited under the wings and credibility of SDSU. Instead, trustees decided last fall to immediately have the campus sever its ties with SDSU and go out on its own, starting with the naming of its president.

Quick Consensus

For their part, trustees would not discuss the details of the selection process, except to say that a consensus quickly grew for Stacy after he and the last two remaining candidates were interviewed Monday for an hour each.

“The trustees were unanimous. They were very, very happy with the decision that was made. We were 100% unanimous,” said Ralph Pesqueira, a CSU trustee and San Diego businessman who chaired the 13-member search committee.

“He will bring to the campus a tremendous amount of enthusiasm. You’re going to find that that campus will start running as of right now. He made a commitment to the community that, if he was selected, he would hit the ground running, and I’m sure that’s what he’ll do.”

Asked about criticism that Stacy was not the first choice among the various search parties, Pesqueira said: “The candidates we had were all capable, and would be acceptable and would do a good job.”

Pesqueira added that the reports given trustees by faculty, staff, students and community leaders did not rank the candidates, but simply offered the pros and cons of each, and that it was up to trustees to then rank them.

“He had an equal number of ‘positives’ when compared to the others,” Pesqueira said.

Others involved with the search, however, indicated that Stacy ranked behind Weller and Guardo in preference among students, faculty and staff who interviewed the finalists.

Stacy, who will be paid $100,000 to $110,000 annually in his new post, was asked to report for duty by July 31. The new university will accept its first few hundred students in the fall of 1990 in buildings now leased by SDSU, which now offers upper-division courses in San Marcos and which was the genesis for the new university.

Stacy’s initial marching orders are to recruit a core faculty of 12 who will develop the university’s curriculum. More than 1,300 faculty members from around the United States already have applied for the first dozen posts.

Stacy will also be expected to quickly develop community support for the university as well as private funding sources to supplement state financing.

CSU San Marcos will be constructed on a 300-acre site, once a chicken ranch, with the first academic buildings opening for upper-division students in the fall of 1992. Freshmen and sophomores will be enrolled beginning in the fall of 1995, and, by the year 2000, 7,500 to 10,000 students are expected to be enrolled.

In making the announcement of his appointment, Reynolds called Stacy “an extraordinarily successful president” at Cape Girardeau.

“You folks have not only the most exciting thing going on in California,” Stacy said, “this is the most exciting thing in the United States. It’s a thrill to me to get the chance to be a part of this brand-new campus.

“From the first day forward, we want to make sure this is a quality institution. Most important for all of us is that the institution delivers on its promise of a high-quality educational opportunity. We need to make sure access to the institution is preserved. It needs to celebrate the diversity of the California population--indeed, the world population.”

Stacy said he will work so that the new campus will not pale in the shadow of San Diego State University, the largest campus in the statewide system.

“We will be an equal partner in the California State University system,” he said. “I’m bringing that commitment. I don’t want to be associated with anything shoddy, anything little-brother, or second-rate.”

Stacy said he believes that he qualified for the job in part because of the programs and campus facilities he developed at Southeast Missouri State University--including the construction of a regional performing arts center.

“I’ve been a builder of excellence in curriculum, of diversity and quality of faculty, and diversity in our student body. People in California have decided I just may have the ability and some experiences that would lend well to the start-up of a new campus,” he said.

There was widespread speculation during the search that, because of the number of white males in the ranks of university presidents in the system, trustees hoped to appoint a woman or minority member to head San Marcos. Among the five finalists were two women--both of whom withdrew--and Wong, who is of Chinese descent.

Among the 20 presidents are a Latino and two blacks; one of the blacks is a woman.

Diversity Sought

“We’re very mindful of that,” Reynolds said. “It’s of paramount importance to the board of trustees. We are very eager in the months and years ahead to have more diversity in our presidential roster.”

Stacy, who has a reputation of deferring to faculty recommendations on matters of curriculum, said he would like students attending Cal State San Marcos to be required to take two years of generalized liberal arts before focusing on their functional, major areas of interest as juniors and seniors. Students would be expected to excel in math, the sciences and writing--even to the point of having to pass a writing proficiency examination before receiving their diplomas, whatever the majors. Seniors also should be required to perform a demonstration activity or write a thesis before graduation to illustrate expertise in their particular fields, Stacy said.

Stacy has a Ph.D in speech communications from Southern Illinois University, and in 1967 returned to Southeast Missouri State in Cape Girardeau--where he earned his bachelor’s degree in education--as a speech communications professor. He has served nowhere else since then, and readily acknowledges that one of his weaknesses in coming to San Marcos is that he is not familiar with California.

Several people involved with the search committee said that Stacy was an acceptable choice. Originally, 187 people, including 50 presidents of universities and colleges elsewhere, applied for the San Marcos job.

“He is a charming, affable and a very personable seller,” said Nick Genovese, a San Diego State University professor of classical literature who served on the trustees’ search committee. “He answered a very important question about promotion and tenure--that he never overturned a faculty decision on promotion or tenure. That’s the kind of thing a faculty loves to hear. He seems to defer to faculty expertise.”

Stacy said that, now that he has been selected for the post, his greatest fear will be, “Will everybody run away and say, ‘OK, that’s your business, call me in 24 months when you’re ready to do something.’ I want to see in the morning that there’s really a commitment. And, will the system provide the money to recruit the kind of faculty the community deserves, the money to equip the laboratories?”

Stacy said that, among his legacies at Southeast Missouri State University is the construction of a performing arts center, funded in part by a voter-approved tax bond that raised $5 million.

“If I have any gift, it is to work hard and cause my colleagues to work harder than they have any obligation to,” Stacy said.