WSU Provost Finalist For Unl Chancellor Post

Washington State University Provost Tom George is one of three finalists for the top job at the University of Nebraska.

George, 48, has been invited to the Lincoln, Neb., campus later this month to meet with university officials and community groups.

“It’s a very attractive position” that might be hard to resist if offered, George said Friday from his WSU office.

If hired, he’d become chancellor at the 24,000-student campus there - home of the Cornhuskers, the 1994 NCAA college football champions.

The chancellor at Lincoln and heads of three other university campuses answer to a statewide university president.

For the past five years, George has been WSU’s chief academic officer and the campus’ No. 2 administrator.

He currently makes about $140,000 per year, and said he has no idea what the chancellor’s job would pay.

“It is the last thing on my mind at this point,” he said.

George said the Nebraska search committee got his name through recommendations from others.

He didn’t discourage the committee “because I thought it would be interesting to test the waters,” he said.

“The job I have here in Pullman is great and I have not been actively looking for another job,” he said.

The other two finalists are James Moeser, provost of the University of South Carolina, and John Kozak, provost at Iowa State University.

The Nebraska chancellor’s position became available this year when Graham Spanier left the school to become president of Pennsylvania State University.

George, who has been a researcher in chemistry and physics, has published more than 100 academic articles in the past five years.

, DataTimes