In a long-awaited announcement that was preceded by many months of speculation, the Council of the College of The Bahamas on Thursday revealed that Bahamian-born Rodney David Smith is the institution\uffb4s third president. <\/P><\/p>\n
Dr. Smith brings a wealth of experience with him, having served in high-ranking positions in several prominent American institutions. <\/P><\/p>\n
The new president will officially take office August 16.<\/P><\/p>\n
Dr. Smith succeeds Dr. Leon Higgs, who demitted office as the college\uffb4s president earlier this month.<\/P><\/p>\n
\uff93When I left the Bahamas many years ago, [COB] was still a baby and it is absolutely mind boggling to come back now and see where the college has come to. The administration and the faculty and staff have done an absolutely tremendous job.<\/P><\/p>\n
\uff93I\uffb4m looking forward to starting another presidency really soon. As you know, I just stepped out of a presidency June 30th. I did not expect to start a presidency so quickly, but it\uffb4s one that I feel without any question that I could do with great passion.\uff92<\/P><\/p>\n
Dr. Smith said a \uff93tremendous\uff92 amount of gratitude is owed to the Council. <\/P><\/p>\n
\uff93They have worked extremely hard and they are a very convincing Council,\uff92 he said. \uff93I think compared to any board of trustees . . . they are among the absolute best.<\/P><\/p>\n
\uff93It is my hope that these Council members will continue to serve the college in years to come. Secondly, I wish to say so far I have met individuals on the campus of COB that are second to none.\uff92<\/P><\/p>\n
Dr. Smith brings a record of \uff93outstanding\uff92 accomplishment, which promises to further enhance the college\uffb4s academic reputation.<\/P><\/p>\n
The new president has committed to leading the drive for greater financial autonomy. <\/P>><\/p>\n
\uff93Dr. Smith\uffb4s appointment followed a most thorough and exhaustive process that has extended for months. The process included advertising in all of the leading sources where people interested in tertiary level leadership roles read, and of course locally,\uff92.<\/P><\/p>\n
\uff93Council in this process was assisted by one of the leading executive search firms in America, which specializes in searching for University presidents \uff96 RH Perry.\uff92<\/P><\/p>\n
Dr. Smith graduated from St. John\uffb4s University in Minnesota with a bachelor\uffb4s degree in psychology with a minor in ecology.<\/P><\/p>\n
He holds a master\uffb4s in clinical psychology from Fisk University in Tennessee, and a second master\uffb4s with a concentration in international development from Boston\uffb4s famed Harvard University.<\/P><\/p>\n
He also received his doctorate in administration, planning and social policy from Harvard. <\/P><\/p>\n
On July 1, 2001, Dr. Smith took over the presidency of Ramapo College of New Jersey, a state-supported liberal arts school, ranked number two among public comprehensive colleges in the north by U.S. News & World Report.<\/P><\/p>\n
At Rampao, he managed an annual operating budget in excess of $90 million.<\/P><\/p>\n
Dr. Smith has also held several senior positions at Hampton University, Virginia, including vice president for planning and dean of the Graduate College.<\/P><\/p>\n
He plans to lead COB\uffb4s drive to university status, fundraising and connecting the college with valuable sponsors and mutually beneficial networks. <\/P><\/p>\n
Rogan M. Smith, The Bahama Journal<\/B><\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dr. Smith succeeds Dr. Leon Higgs, who demitted office as the college\uffb4s president earlier this month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10223285771444175_51037792744":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-245587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245587\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}