 "Photo:")
A second candidate for vice president of student affairs, Paul Barrows, has dropped out of the running, he told the Texan Wednesday.
The candidate, a former vice chancellor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, did not say why he withdrew or whether he had notified UT President Larry Faulkner, who was unavailable for comment.
Two candidates remain: Juan Gonzalez, vice president of student affairs at Arizona State University, and Zenaido Comacho, managing director of Texas Tech Health Sciences Center-El Paso. Peg Blake, vice president of student affairs at Boise State University, withdrew in April, after being charged with driving under the influence of alcohol.
Gonzalez, who has been criticized by student leaders from his previous universities, and Zenaido were unavailable for comment Wednesday.
Nancy McCowen, executive assistant to Faulkner, said Monday that Faulkner had completed all interviews and reference checks and would make an announcement in the coming weeks.
If none of the candidates fit Faulkner's criteria, he has said that current Vice President of Student Affairs James Vick will serve until Sept. 1, when an interim replacement will be named and a new committee appointed to find new candidates.
Barrows, 53, has been on paid sick leave from UW since Nov. 7 because of "family-related issues," said UW spokeswoman Amy Toburen. This contradicts an April 21 UT press release which states that Barrows returned to his job on April 1.
During this leave, a search committee recommended Barrows as a finalist in April, and he visited the campus for an interview and an open forum.
Toburen said Barrows will return to UW after his leave and become a special assistant to Chancellor John D. Wiley, working on diversity recruitment programming. She said she was unaware Barrows had withdrawn.
Last fall he abruptly resigned from UW, where he had worked since 1989.
A Wisconsin ABC-affiliate reported Wednesday that Barrows had been paid an estimated $38,000 for his leave, which alarmed Wisconsin state Rep. Rob Kreibich.
"How ill is he, if he's up for one of the top jobs at a university in Texas?" Kreibich told the TV station. "The sick leave that we're looking at here ... It's hard for the taxpayers and public who maintains and supports the UW system to rally around its cause when they see this kind of disconnect, this kind of gap between life in the private sector and what they're seeing at the upper echelons of the UW system."
At the predominately white UW, he was considered the point man on diversity issues. UT-Austin's new vice provost for inclusion and cross-cultural effectiveness, Greg Vincent, worked alongside Barrows when Vincent was director of UW's Equity and Diversity Resource Center.
While Barrows was vice chancellor for student affairs, UW received national attention when it had to reprint 100,000 application brochures that featured a cover photo in which a black student's face was digitally inserted into a photo of an all-white football crowd. Replacing the brochures cost an estimated $64,000, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Be the first to comment on this article!