Dr. Andrew Hugine Jr., the number two man at South Carolina State University, is one of three finalists for president, the board announced Wednesday afternoon.

The others are Dr. James H. Johnson Jr., dean and professor of civil engineering at Howard University, and Dr. Earl Yarbrough Sr., provost and vice president for academic affairs at Virginia State University.

The three candidates are scheduled to meet university stakeholders next week -- Johnson on Monday, Hugine on Tuesday and Yarbrough on Wednesday. Each will follow the same schedule:

-- Meet with faculty and staff at 10 a.m. in the Barbara A. Vaughn Recital Hall in the Fine Arts Center.

-- Meet with alumni at 11:30 a.m. in Development Room 206 on the second floor of Belcher Hall.

-- Meet with students at 12:30 p.m. in Development Room 206 on the second floor of Belcher Hall.

-- Meet with the Board of Trustees late in the day for another round of interviews.

"At the onset of the presidential search process, the board pledged to introduce finalists for the position of president to the S.C. State family of stakeholders. On May 5-7, the board will make good on that pledge by allowing stakeholders an opportunity to hear and engage the candidates," said Maurice G. Washington, chairman of the SCSU Board of Trustees.

"The board of trustees has been entrusted with providing this institution with preeminent leadership. In keeping with the vested interest of the university and its stakeholders, we are looking forward to the interaction with the candidates on next week," Washington said.

"This phase brings us closer to naming the CEO and this board is extremely pleased to be within the final stages of this process," he said.

The board began its search for the institution's ninth president on Jan. 17, 2002, less than a week after Dr. Leroy Davis Sr. informed faculty and staff of his intention to retire at the end of June 2002.

Since June 27, 2002, retired South Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice Ernest A. Finney Jr. has served as interim president.

The State Budget and Control Board was retained to receive and screen applications. Applications were cut off on Sept. 13, and the names of the 49 who met minimum requirements were forwarded to an ad hoc presidential search committee, which narrowed the list to eight.

The list was cut to five, then to three, but one dropped out. Desiring a larger pool from which to choose, the board restored four candidates. The names of the six semifinalists -- including Yarbrough -- were announced Jan. 14.

Less than a month later, the trustee board voted to reopen the application window for 10 business days. There were seven new applicants -- including Hugine and Johnson, apparently -- while one of the original six candidates dropped out.

Here's a look at each of the finalists:

Hugine

Finney, who has extensive experience in administration but not in higher education, accepted the interim presidency with the understanding that a person with academic experience could serve as his right-hand man.

That person turned out to be Hugine, who was named interim executive vice president -- a newly created position -- and given the primary responsibility of assisting the interim president with the day-to-day operation of the institution.

That allowed Finney to devote more time to building support for the university, cultivating the various stakeholders and working with the General Assembly.

Hugine has been employed with the university for 25 years in various capacities including director of Institutional Self Studies, assistant vice president for academic affairs and professor of mathematics.

Other assignments include chairman of major committees for the self study, chairman of faculty committees -- such as Division of General Education Curriculum, and Assessment and Evaluation.

Hugine is a former president of the Faculty Senate and served as executive director of the presidential search in 1996.

He also served as institutional research analyst and assistant professor and teaching assistant at Michigan State University.

Hugine received his bachelor's degree in mathematics from S.C. State in 1971, his master's degree in education from S.C. State in 1974 and his Ph.D. in higher education administration and institutional research from Michigan State University in 1977.

He served on the local public school board of trustees for 10 years, part of that time as chairman. During his tenure, seven districts in the county were consolidated into three, and the consolidated board hired Melvin Smoak as superintendent.

Hugine was voted off the board shortly after Orangeburg County Legislative Delegation Chairman Sen. John Matthews, who made no secret of his disagreement with the trustees, championed legislation that redrew Hugine's district and changed the way the trustees were elected.

Hugine's civic affiliations in Orangeburg County have included the NAACP, Edisto United Way, Edisto Lodge No. 39, the Democratic Party and Williams Chapel AME Church.

He and his wife, Abbiegail, have two grown children, Andrew III and Akilah.

Johnson

When Dr. H. Patrick Swygert, president of Howard University in Washington, D.C., was asked if he knew any good candidates for the SCSU presidency, he thought of Johnson.

Johnson is a professor of civil engineering and dean of the College of Engineering, Architecture and Computer Sciences.

"I have had responsibilities that have allowed me to broaden my view of college administration," Johnson said in a phone interview.

"For the last seven years I've been dean of a college. I deal with six different departments and three different sets of disciplines within my college. I work with diverse groups of individuals," he said.

Johnson has served his entire 30-year professional academic career at Howard, but the transition wouldn't be as big as it might seem.

"I'm a small-town guy," he said. "I was born in Annapolis and still reside there. I'm involved in my community. I work with a museum foundation board and a youth services group."

Although he has no connections to SCSU or even to South Carolina, Johnson said he anticipates creating them through community involvement.

He knows SCSU has its share of problems, but "I don't look at them as challenges, I look at them as opportunities." As an engineer, "I want to take a problem-solving approach and get the job done."

SCSU has an opportunity "to be a leader in education" by creating educators, developing new means of pedagogy, assisting in local and regional economic development, working with K-12 schools and encouraging more students to pursue careers in science, math and engineering, Johnson said.

These priorities are broad brush by design, he said. The details will come later, after consultation with key constituencies.

"The vision for any university is finely crafted by its leadership with a lot of input from all of the constituents, faculty, staff and students," he said. "We're going to hit the ground running, once we've decided where we're going."

Johnson is a former interim associate vice president for research and chairman of the Department of Civil Engineering at Howard University.

He holds his Ph.D. in applied sciences from the University of Delaware; his master's in sanitary engineering from the University of Illinois; and his bachelor's degree in civil engineering from Howard University.

He has taught department of civil engineering undergraduate and graduate courses in the area of environmental engineering, including hazardous waste management, treatment and disposal.

Johnson's research interests include treatment and reuse of wastewater sludge and the treatment of hazardous substances.

He has conducted research on refining composting technology for the treatment of contaminated soils, chemical oxidation and cometabolic transformation of explosive-contaminated wastes, biodegradation of fuel-contaminated groundwater, the evaluation of environmental policy issues in relation to minorities and the development of environmental curricula.

He is associate director of the Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic Center for Hazardous Substance Research.

He is a member of the National Research Council's Board on Radioactive Waste Management, NRC's Committee on the Remediation of Buried and Tank Wastes and a division review committee of Los Alamos National Laboratory.

He is principal investigator of the Engineering Coalition of Schools for Excellence and Leadership in Education, which works to draw more women and minorities into the field of engineering.

Johnson has published more than 40 scholarly articles, contributed to three books and co-edited two books.

He is a member of the American Association of Environmental Engineering Professors, American Water Works Association, American Society of Civil Engineers, American Society of Engineering Education and Tau Beta Pi.

Johnson is a registered professional engineer in the District of Columbia and a diplomate of the American Academy of Environmental Engineers.

He and his wife have no children.

Yarbrough

Yarbrough has been provost and vice president for academic affairs at Virginia State University in Petersburg since July 1, 1998. He is also a full professor.

Previously he served for 12 years as dean of the School of Technology at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical University in Greensboro.

He also has served as full professor and chairman of the Industrial Technology Department at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff; earned full professor and director of planning at Northeastern Oklahoma State University in Tahlequah and instructor of engineering graphics at Des Moines Community College, Boone Campus.

He holds the Ph.D. in industrial education from Iowa State University, his master's degree in industrial studies from California State University in Los Angeles and his bachelor's degree in industrial education from Wichita State University.

Yarbrough is the author of numerous articles, reports and monographs in his field and has given presentations for various professional organizations.

He served the National Association of Industrial Technology as chair of several accreditation teams. He served on the board of directors for the honorary Epsilon Pi Tau, the Editorial Boards for the Journal of Technological Studies and Journal of Industrial Technology, and as a consultant for technology programs at several universities.

Yarbrough was a finalist for president of the University of Nebraska at Kearney and an applicant for president of the University of Central Arkansas last year.

At this time, he is also a candidate for president at Prairie View A&M, according to a report in the Houston-based publication, University Faculty Voice.

If Yarbrough does not get a presidency, he has said he will leave the administrative ranks this year and return to being a full-time professor.

The Progress-Index newspaper of Petersburg reported last December that "Yarbrough announced in November that he will step down as provost next year, but said his decision had nothing to do with the long-running lawsuit" filed by Dr. Fathy Saleh.

Saleh and fellow professor Dr. Godwin O. Mbagwu filed a lawsuit in federal court against Virginia State in 1999, claiming they were discriminated against because of their race and national origin.

The university denied wrongdoing.

The court, while not finding that there had been illegal acts of discrimination against Saleh, a white native of Egypt, and Mbagwu, a native of Nigeria, awarded six-figure amounts in damages to the plaintiffs and issued a permanent injunction against the university.

Last July, Saleh returned to court, claiming that the university was violating the injunction and asking for $20 million in compensation.

Saleh provided the court with a copy of a memorandum indicating that his annual performance evaluation would be deliberately downgraded.

The memorandum purported to be from Yarbrough, but Yarbrough told the University Faculty Voice: "I did not write it or authorize it." The Virginia attorney general's office has launched an investigation.

Yarbrough and two other plaintiffs in Saleh's latest action did not admit any wrongdoing, but agreed to a "stipulation,'' a legal term similar to settlement. According to the Progress-Index, court records do not mention the $20 million, but Saleh agreed to the terms that included a return in good standing to the department, no interference with his grant work and reconsideration of his 2001-2002 evaluation.

T&D Staff Writer Lee Hendren can be reached by e-mail at lhendren@timesanddemocrat.com or by phone at 803-533-5552.

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