GSU’s president list gets shorter

A statistician from the University of South Carolina and a biomedical researcher from Louisiana State University are in the running for the presidency of Georgia State University, the state Board of Regents announced Thursday.

Mark B. Becker has been executive vice president for academic affairs and provost at the University of South Carolina since 2004. Becker, whose doctorate in statistics is from Pennsylvania State University, previously worked as a biostatistics professor and dean of the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. He also held posts at the University of Michigan, University of Washington, University of Florida and Cornell University.

Brooks A. Keel is vice chancellor for research and economic development and professor of biological sciences at LSU. He has a doctorate in reproductive endocrinology from the Medical College of Georgia and has done postdoctoral work in Texas and South Dakota.

Keel previously served in several positions, including professor in the department of obstetrics and gynecology and director of reproductive medicine laboratories, at the University of Kansas School of Medicine in Wichita. He also was associate vice president for research at Florida State University.

The regents are expected to name one of the two to succeed retiring GSU president Carl Patton. The board is required to wait 14 days after announcing finalists to make an appointment.

Regents chairman Richard Tucker said he hopes the board will name a new president by Nov. 1.

Tucker said it is coincidental that both top candidates have health backgrounds.

“But we do have a great public health program there,” he said. “There are some synergies we think we can draw on being in Atlanta.” He named as possible partners the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Emory University and the Grady Health System, whose main facilities are adjacent to the GSU campus in downtown Atlanta.

Both finalists are “extremely talented academic researchers and leaders,” said Susan Herbst, executive vice chancellor of the University System of Georgia.

“We had an extremely strong pool of candidates, which I think speaks well for Georgia State and Carl Patton’s leadership.”

An earlier search for a new president for the state’s second-largest university failed this summer when all three finalists dropped out.