As some Black leaders question Temple president’s departure, names of potential interims begin to surface

Days after Jason Wingard resigned as Temple University’s president, names have begun to swirl as potential interim replacements, including leaders who were marginalized under Wingard.

Among the names are JoAnne A. Epps, former law school dean who was moved out by Wingard as provost in August 2021 as part of a larger shift of senior leaders, and Valerie I. Harrison, vice president for diversity, equity and inclusion, who once served as interim president of Lincoln University in Chester County. Before that she had been Temple’s vice president of public affairs and reported directly to Wingard.

Also mentioned by Temple insiders is Ken Kaiser, senior vice president and chief operating officer, who has worked at Temple for more than 30 years but planned to leave this summer until Wingard resigned.

» READ MORE: After a tumultuous tenure, Jason Wingard has resigned as Temple University president

And others wondered if former president Richard M. Englert, who retired when Wingard took over but at 77 still serves as chancellor, could step in.

As names were bandied about on the North Philadelphia campus, State Sen. Vincent Hughes at an Appropriations Committee hearing in Harrisburg on Thursday morning questioned the need to replace Wingard in the first place. An early departure for Temple’s first Black president sends “a very chilling message,” he said.

“Those individuals who are of color, especially African American, are looking at what happened to President Wingard and asking, ‘Where am I in this conversation?’ And you need to be aware of it,” Hughes (D., Phila.) told Kaiser, who testified at the budget hearing.

Just one week earlier, it was Wingard representing Temple at a House Appropriations Committee hearing.

Hughes listed state grants that Temple received during Wingard’s tenure to address important campus concerns such as safety, illustrating that Wingard tried to lead the university through these “issues out of his control.” However, Hughes said, he was still out of the job in less than two years.

”What standards are Black presidents [held to] that might not be the same as white presidents?” Hughes said.

Asked about Hughes’ comments, Mitchell Morgan, board chair, said: “I’ve only heard supportive comments.”

But Kimmika Williams-Witherspoon, faculty senate president, said she thought Hughes’ comments were worthy of consideration.

“It’s part of what I’ve been saying,” she said. “Some individuals are held to a higher standard than others. And the expectations are different. Most leaders of color, if they know the history of leadership in this country, kind of recognize what happened.”

» READ MORE: Temple grad students overwhelmingly ratify agreement, ending their six-week strike

Wingard’s departure followed a 42-day strike by graduate student workers and the February shooting death of an on-duty Temple police sergeant, renewing concerns about safety near campus. Enrollment has been falling, with deposits for next year down 25% compared with the same time last year, according to a source close to the school’s deans.

The Temple Association of University Professionals, the faculty union, was preparing to hold a vote of no confidence in Wingard, as well as provost Gregory N. Mandel and Morgan, citing myriad concerns including the failure to renew contracts for some nontenured faculty, vacancies in some key administrative jobs, university finances, and problems in the offices of ethics and compliance and research, as well as Wingard’s seeming lack of presence on campus. The union intends to go forward with the vote on Morgan and Mandel.

» READ MORE: Temple defends its police staffing struggles after the shooting death of one of its officers

Also, last week, a Temple News survey of 1,000 students showed 92% disapproved of Wingard’s performance. And the school’s deans had sent a letter to Morgan, requesting a meeting over concerns.

In a statement to The Inquirer on Tuesday night, Wingard said: “While I am confident in my ability to pivot and lead Temple through this crisis, I understand, and it has been made clear, unfortunately, that too much focus is on me rather than the challenges we seek to overcome. In order for Temple to overcome these safety and enrollment challenges — and all of the related issues they instigate, the campus community must work in collaboration and minimize divisiveness.”

Temple’s board leaders announced last week they planned to take a stronger oversight role of the university as it faced what Morgan called an “unprecedented confluence of serious challenges.” Board leaders said they had formed a special committee to apply “more rigorous attention to urgent matters,” specifically campus safety, enrollment, and “university engagement and responsiveness,” between its quarterly board meetings.

» READ MORE: Temple faculty union authorizes a vote of no confidence to take place against university leaders

It’s unclear when an interim president may be named, and Morgan has not commented on potential candidates. He said Thursday that the committee is working on addressing interim leadership.

“In the meantime, we are relying on our strong core group of senior administrators,” he said. “We are also beginning the process of seeking meetings with key university groups, and taking steps to initiate a presidential search.”

Other names that have surfaced include Hai-Lung Dai, chemistry professor and former provost; Amy Goldberg, dean of the medical school; and James Earl Davis, interim dean of the college of education and human development.

A source familiar with a meeting of academic leaders and administrators this week where next steps were discussed said an internal candidate would probably be best, given the urgency to move on pressing problems.

“Most people feel it should be someone with operating experience who can move us forward,” said the source. “I want to see somebody who can execute and operate.”

When an outsider has been appointed president as was the case with Wingard and Neil D. Theobald — who was forced to resign in 2016 — Temple has faced some difficulty.

But university leadership enjoyed relative stability for about five years under Englert, who had been a Temple employee for more than 40 years when he stepped in as interim president upon Theobald’s departure and remained until Wingard started. There were still problems under his watch, including a rankings scandal at Temple’s business school that ended with its former dean Moshe Porat sentenced to 14 months in federal prison.

“Dick knew Temple inside and out,” said Art Hochner, former president of the Temple Association of University Professionals, the faculty union. “He was liked and trusted by lots of people.”

Epps, a native of Cheltenham and a 1976 graduate of Yale Law School, did not return an email for comment Thursday. She came in as provost — the university’s chief academic officer — in 2016 after Dai was removed from that position. Before that, Epps had spent 31 years at the law school, the last eight as its dean.

An employee of Temple for more than 35 years, she is currently on the law school faculty and a senior adviser to the president.

Harrison, who also did not respond to an email request for comment, started at Temple for the second time in 2015 as senior associate university counsel and became senior adviser to the president in May 2016, according to her LinkedIn account. She initially was promoted under Wingard during the August 2021 change in leadership, but then her role changed. With a master’s and doctorate from Temple and a Villanova law school degree, she previously had served as acting president of Lincoln for 10 months and its general counsel for more than a year.

Before that, she had worked as associate counsel at Temple for more than 13 years.

Kaiser, who declined to comment, got his bachelor’s degree in finance from Temple in 1989 and two master’s degrees from there as well. He’s worked at Temple for more than 30 years under six presidents.