Board picks Bobbitt to head UA system

By Rob Moritz

Arkansas News Bureau

LITTLE ROCK - Donald R. Bobbitt, provost and vice president of academic affairs at the University of Texas at Arlington, was selected Thursday to head the University of Arkansas System.

The UA Board of Trustees chose Bobbitt, 54, from among four finalists to succeed the retiring B. Alan Sugg as UA System president after completing interviews of the candidates over two days.

Dr. Carl Johnson, the board chairman, said Bobbitt had agreed to a three-year contract worth $355,000 a year, just under the $370,000 statutory maximum. Sugg's salary is $294,953.

"We think we have an extraordinary candidate in Don Bobbitt," Johnson said after the board made its choice in a unanimous public vote. "He has the vision, the leadership and the right skills, and also the academic background to bring us into the future."Bobbitt told reporters during a telephone conference that he considered his selection a "career defining moment" both personally and professionally.

The UA graduate said two of his children have graduated from the Fayetteville campus and he has two relatives currently attending."The University of Arkansas means a great deal to me and to be able to return and serve it in the way that this position entails is something that ... I know will be a thrill not only for me but my wife and my family," he said. "Much of what I have become I owe to the start at the University of Arkansas."

Asked about his top priorities as head of the university, Bobbitt said he sees "some great opportunities for synergism.""The fact that we have a top-notch medical school, a flag ship, metropolitan campus, regional campuses, community colleges, a high school and a number of prominent divisions all in a single system gives at least a pause to think that you might be able to at least align curricula admissions along those institutions," he said. "And, anytime you can do that you can provide more opportunities and higher efficiency."

Another priority, he said, will be improving the university's online presence to better meet the educational needs of Arkansans.Bobbitt said he has told officials at UT-Arlington that he hopes to be at UA by Jan. 1, but added he hopes it can be sometime this fall. Sugg has agreed to stay until the new system presidents arrives.

Bobbitt has served as provost and vice president for academic affairs at the Texas school since 2008. Previously, he served five years as dean of the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences at UA-Fayetteville.

While there, he was a professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry from 1993 to 2008 and director of the UA Arkansas Biosciences Institute from 2001 to 2008.

He earned a B.S. in chemistry from UA in 1980 and a Ph.D. in analytical chemistry from Iowa State University in 1985.Bobbitt and his wife, Susan, have three sons.

The UA board met for nearly two hours in executive session Thursday afternoon before announcing its decision."We had four outstanding candidates who brought great ideas and talents to the table, but we felt that Dr. Bobbitt had the right combination of skills and experience we were looking for," Johnson said. The other candidates were Frank Oldham, former American State Bank Chairman and CEO; John Churchill, secretary of the Phi Beta Kappa Society and a former interim president at Hendrix College; and Stanley E. Reed, a former Arkansas Farm Bureau president and UA board member.

Earlier in the search, the trustees held a series of forums on university campuses around the state to gain public input on the process.