Ball State hires Northern Kentucky president as new leader

MUNCIE, Ind. (AP) - Ball State University trustees voted Tuesday to hire its new president away from Northern Kentucky University, a year after the school's previous leader resigned without explanation.

Ball State's board voted unanimously to select Geoffrey Mearns, who has been Northern Kentucky's president since 2012. He previously was at Cleveland State University, where he first was law school dean and then provost.

Former Ball State President Paul Ferguson resigned in January 2016 after 17 months leading the 21,000-student school. The trustees faced criticism for a lack of transparency about Ferguson's departure that included confidentiality and mutual non-disparagement clauses in his $500,000 severance package.

The (Muncie) Star Press reported in December that it had obtained an email Ferguson wrote about 10 months before his resignation in which he described wide-ranging conflicts with trustees chairman Rick Hall. Those included differences over hiring decisions and strategies dealing with enrollment and revenue losses.

Mearns, who was introduced before a crowd of several hundred people in a Muncie campus auditorium, said everyone at the university shared responsibility for its success.

"In order to encourage people to participate collaboratively and cooperatively, there is the need to be transparent," he said.

Mearns said he'll start at Ball State no later than August and that transition details would be worked out with Northern Kentucky. His base salary will be $450,000 a year, the same as Ferguson, Ball State spokeswoman Joan Todd said.

Ball State board member Matt Momper, who led the presidential search committee, said Mearns was a strong pick as the new president based on his success at winning increased state funding for Northern Kentucky and securing $97 million from the state toward a new health innovation center at the 15,000-student school near Cincinnati.

Mearns was an attorney for 17 years before becoming Cleveland State's law school dean in 2005. His legal work included serving as special attorney to the U.S. attorney general in the prosecution of 1995 Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols.