2 curators to head Lincoln University presidential search

Lincoln University president Kevin Rome speaks during a news conference Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2016 at Lincoln University.
Lincoln University president Kevin Rome speaks during a news conference Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2016 at Lincoln University.

Lincoln University Curators Winston Rutledge, of Jefferson City, and Frank Logan, of St. Louis, will head the school's search for its 20th president.

"They will direct the ship, and they will help lead all of those who will be part of our search committee, trying to find our new president," Curators President Marvin Teer said as he announced the appointments during Thursday's Board of Curators meeting. "I know they are going to do a fabulous job. They know and love this institution, and I have no doubt that with all the members of the committee that they will assemble they will put their heart into it."

Current President Keven Rome announced last month he's been hired by Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, as its next president, starting July 1.

The board has not yet announced an interim president to serve after Rome leaves until the next president takes over.

Although Rome still will be in Jefferson City when the curators hold their next formal meeting, now scheduled for June 8, Teer praised Rome on Thursday as though it were his final meeting with the board.

"I think the saddest thing - but yet the happiest thing - is to say goodbye to Dr. Rome, officially," Teer, a 1986 Lincoln graduate, said. "Dr. Rome came to us with all of the energy and excitement that a new president can and lived up to and surpassed the expectations that we had. There has been an energy unmatched at this university in quite some time."

After the outgoing president received a standing ovation from curators and most in the audience, Teer said he wanted to put to rest rumors Lincoln's curators had fired Rome.

"He has done nothing at all that would ever give us reason to question him, to want to remove him," Teer said. "He has not in any way, shape or form been removed by this august body.

"We are proud of him, and we will miss him. I want him to stay."

Teer said Rome's "integrity is unmatched and unquestioned."

But, Teer said, "I understand that when wonderful opportunities and great challenges come, that's what life is for - to experience them and explore them."

In June 2014, after he'd been Lincoln's president for a year, Rome told LU's curators: "I'm not looking at this as a stepping stone. I'm not saying I'll be here forever, but I'm not looking to leave."

Last week, he told the News Tribune: "The (LU) board asked me to stay. I should say I wasn't looking for a job, and I made that very clear to the institution. But also, if I look at my undergraduate institution - Morehouse College - and I look at Fisk, it's really more in line with where I started and received my education."

Rome said he had hoped "to be here many years. I had hoped to stay here a significant amount of years. Fortunately, we were able to accomplish many things in a short time."

He said making the decision to move was bittersweet.

"I actually love this community, and I've had a good experience here," he said. "This is like home to me, and the people I've met - the relationships, the friendships - will go with me for a lifetime. So it's not easy to just walk away from a place where it's been the formative years for my kids - their friends, their memories will be here."

But, he said, now is a better time for his twins - a son and daughter - to relocate than in a couple of years when they will be in high school.

"It would be impossible if we waited a couple more years," he said.

Now, at 50, Rome is hoping Fisk - his second university presidency - will be his last job.

"I'm near the end of my career, regardless of how people may think I'm young," he explained last week. "I'm not working until I'm 67. I only plan to work until about 62 or 63."

As he said last month after making the announcement of his taking the Fisk job: "My relationship with Lincoln doesn't end with me leaving here. I hope to be a member of the alumni association and come back for homecomings and visit friends and stay invested."

He noted he and his wife, Stefanie Baker Rome, "have an endowed scholarship here. I hope that grows - and we continue to help support the causes of Lincoln."