CLINTON, Miss. (BP)–Trustees of Mississippi College in Clinton have chosen Lee G. Royce, president of Anderson College in Anderson, S.C., to become the 19th president in the 175-year history of the four-year school affiliated with the Mississippi Baptist Convention.
The selection of Royce was announced at a Jan. 30 news conference by Harry Vickery of Madison, chairman of the school’s trustee board. Royce was not present at the news conference.
Royce succeeds Howell W. Todd, who served as president for about seven years before retiring and returning to his native Tennessee. Todd, who helped lead a successful $100 million fundraising campaign and broke ground on a number of new construction projects, was dogged in his final years as president by budget problems and misallocation of funds among the school’s accounts.
Vickery said at the press conference that the college is now on sound financial footing and is enjoying an increase in student enrollment. “We feel like we’re in a new day,” he said.
Vickery did not disclose the new president’s salary and declined to describe the selection process. He said Royce would be on campus around July 1 after certain portions of his current contract with Anderson College were fulfilled.
Mississippi College counts about 3,400 students on both its Clinton campus and downtown Jackson law school.
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(BP) photo posted in the BP Photo Library at http://www.bpnews.net. Photo title: LEE G. ROYCE.
