Former Jackson State University Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs, Denise Jones Gregory, has recently been named interim president.
JSU’s former president, Marcus Thompson, resigned suddenly May 7. He was the third president to leave the university in the past five years.
Speaking to journalists at a state event, Governor Tate Reeves expressed concerns about the news.
“Jackson State needs consistency,” he said. “They need quality leadership, and I think that the IHL board and the IHL commissioner owe the taxpayers an explanation as to why they have gotten it so wrong at Jackson State.”
IHL Board President Gee Ogletree says he’s aware of the criticism.
“We always are going to receive comments from elected officials and from the public, and we listen to those,” he said. “So we are aware that we'll be going through a new process as we select the president of JSU, and we're going to have an open and transparent process that will follow our policy.”
Ogletree says there are always opportunities for suggestions regarding the policies IHL uses.
“We have listening sessions now,” he said. “So we involve every aspect of both the community of the Metro Jackson area, the faculty, the students, the alumni at Jackson State. So they are involved in the current process, and we always could revise our process to create more involvement.”
In a statement, the IHL board notes it went into an executive session to “discuss a personnel matter regarding the job performance of a person with a specific position at JSU and related potential and pending litigation. The discussion of either of these topics in open session would be detrimental to IHL’s legal interest.”
The selection process for JSU’s next permanent president has not begun and it is not clear how long it will take.
