After top candidate for USC president drops out, search committee regroups

After the University of South Carolina’s favored candidate to be the school’s next president dropped out of the search, the Board of Trustees is scheduled to meet throughout this week in an attempt to find a replacement for former President Robert Caslen.

The Board of Trustees, who will eventually vote on a president, met Monday for two hours in executive session to discuss the pick. When they returned to open session, they voted to accept the Presidential Search Committee’s recommendations for candidates and to allow Board Chair Dorn Smith and Vice Chair Thad Westbrook to schedule further search events.

The candidates were not identified, and Smith called the move a “due process related action.”

USC’s trustees have meetings scheduled throughout the week to potentially discuss the presidential search. Because the meetings have to be set five days in advance, USC scheduled them ahead of time and will cancel them if they don’t need to meet, USC spokesman Jeff Stensland said.

Both Smith and Westbrook declined comment through a spokesman after the meeting. It’s unclear whether the recent developments have affected the university’s timeline for selecting a new president.

After a search process began in May, when Caslen resigned, USC’s Presidential Search Committee identified a favorite out of the dozens of applicants. That was Mung Chiang, the engineering dean and a vice president at Purdue University. A day after Chiang surfaced publicly as a favorite, he withdrew from the search, citing family reasons, The State reported previously.

Caslen resigned following a commencement speech in which he mistakenly congratulated graduates of the “University of California” and plagiarized a portion of the speech. Since then, Caslen’s predecessor, Harris Pastides has been serving as the university’s interim president.

The 2019 presidential search that ended with Caslen’s hiring drew scrutiny from USC’s accrediting body, the school’s students, donors and employees after Gov. Henry McMaster forced a yes-or-no vote on Caslen, subverting the board’s planned process.

Since then, officials in the 2021 search process have sought to change the search process. They have changed the board’s bylaws and have worked to improve public perception of the search by naming a search committee that’s more diverse than in 2019.

However, the current search has faced several challenges in recent months. That includes Caslen telling multiple media outlets that he regretted coming to USC; a top USC donor and search committee member leaving the search in protest; and, most recently, Chiang dropping out of the search.

This story was originally published December 6, 2021 at 8:28 PM.