After the announcement earlier this year that he wouldn’t seek another term as dean of the Mays Business School, speculation as to where Jerry Strawser would end up was laid to rest Sept. 3. The Board of Regents confirmed Strawser as Texas A&M vice president of finance and administration and chief financial officer.
Provost Karan Watson said the search is on for a new dean for the Mays Business School, but in the mean time an interim dean will be appointed. Watson said she hopes the college will have a new dean by late spring.
“[Currently] he’s doing both jobs — he’s learning his new job and knows a lot about it and doing it very well,” Watson said. “He’s still officially the dean, but I will appoint an interim dean for the business school within the next few days.”
Bill Dugas, acting vice chancellor and dean for the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, is chair of the search advisory committee for the new Mays Business School dean. Dugas said an outside firm has been contracted to handle the applicants and he hopes to begin processing applications within a month.
“I think the search is going well,” Dugas said “We prepared the position description and we worked with the search firm to get that publicized, they are now collecting applications and we will review those applications, I’m guessing in about a month or so.”
Strawser had one of the longest tenures of any dean at Texas A&M, serving 13 years in the position. During this time, Stawser took a break from June 2007 through August 2008 to be the interim provost, an experience he said helped prepare him for taking on his current role.
“What it did was it allowed me to learn a lot about the different pieces of the University and how they fit together,” Strawser said. “One of the things I learned when I was interim provost is that this university does a lot of things very well, and I think what we need to do is continue investing in those things and investing in the strengths of our school.”
Strawser said his primary focuses as vice president of finance and administration include identifying funds to use toward Vision 2020 and making the case for Texas A&M to the Texas legislature.
Watson said finding the right person for the job of vice president of finance and administration was tough as the position requires a high level of strategic thinking, but said Strawser is the perfect person for the job.
“What we needed is somebody who can really think strategically about how we utilize the resources we have, how we position ourselves as Jerry had done for the [business] school to get more resources where we need them,” Watson said. “But really, to make sure we’re using our resources for the most important priorities for our mission and our vision.”
Strawser has the skills and background needed to be an effective advisor to the university president, Watson said.