Preferred Candidate for Ole Miss Chancellorship

Dr. Dan Jones, preferred candidate for the UM chancellorship

Months of speculation over who will succeed retiring Ole Miss Chancellor Robert Khayat have come to an end: Dr. Dan Jones, vice chancellor for health affairs at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, is the College Board’s preferred candidate to take the helm in Oxford. MPB’s Sandra Knispel has more.

With the announcement of the preferred candidate’s name yesterday afternoon in Jackson the selection process is now nearing its end. Next Monday, Dr. Dan Jones will meet with university constituents in a series of campus interviews. The Ole Miss faculty senate is one of them and its chair is psychology professor Dr. Kenneth Sufka.

“What a courageous person to follow in the heels of Chancellor Khayat at a time when we’re facing potential further budget cuts from the state and IHL. And I think a person that wants this particular job at this point in time is a very courageous person," Sufka said.

Reporters in Jackson asked Dr. Jones yesterday about his preferred leadership style.

“The university is in a good position now and as I said earlier I want to spend a good bit of my time listening," Dr. Jones explained. "There is a very strong base of leadership at the university, and so I’ll try to use my listening and hearing skills in the early days of this.”

Everyone – including Jones himself – concedes he’ll have big shoes to fill, following Chancellor Khayat, a fundraiser par excellence. Speaking in Jackson yesterday, Dr. Khayat promised to be a resource during the transition period:

“Not a very visible resource, but a resource. And when he needs me he will call me," Khayat said. "He knows I want to be helpful, but I don’t want to be in his way. This is his opportunity to serve in what I consider to be the – probably the most coveted position in the state.”

The College Board will make its final decision immediately Monday after Jones has met with the various groups on campus.

Jones's CV:

Daniel W. Jones, M.D. is vice chancellor for health affairs, dean of the School of Medicine and Herbert G. Langford Professor of Medicine at the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC) in Jackson. He serves as the institution’s chief executive officer overseeing five schools and the health system.

Active in the American Heart Association (AHA), Dr. Jones was the 2007-2008 national president. He also serves on the national board of directors. Previously he has chaired the strategic planning task force and the association’s International Committee. He is also a member of AHA’s Council for High Blood Pressure Research, and serves the association as a national spokesperson on high blood pressure.

A native Mississippian, he graduated from Mississippi College in 1971 and earned his M.D. and completed residency training at UMMC. He was in private practice in Laurel, Mississippi from 1978 until he went to Korea in 1985 as a medical missionary to serve as director of the community health department and hypertension clinic at the Wallace Memorial Baptist Hospital in Pusan. In 1992, he returned to the University of Mississippi Medical Center as a faculty member.

For most of his career, his patient care, teaching and research activities have focused on hypertension and prevention of cardiovascular disease. He was the first principal investigator for the Medical Center’s participation in the landmark Jackson Heart Study, a National Institutes of Health-sponsored population study focused on cardiovascular disease in African Americans.

A fellow of the American College of Physicians, Jones is certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine and is designated as a specialist in clinical hypertension by the American Society of Hypertension Specialists. He has been named one of the “Best Doctors in America” from 1996-2008. He is a member of Alpha Omega Alpha national honor medical society.

Jones is a member of the board of directors of Global Resource Services, a non-governmental organization providing professional consultation to East Asian nations including the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (North Korea).

He and his wife, Lydia, live in Hazlehurst and are the parents of two children.