South Guilford News

Guilford College issued the following announcement on Dec. 15.

Interim President Jim Hood '79 shares a few important announcements with the College community.

Appointment of Vice President of Administration and Finance/Chief Financial Officer

It is my great pleasure to announce that John W. Wilkinson has recently been appointed as Guilford’s Vice President for Administration and Finance and Chief Financial Officer. John has been serving in this role on an interim basis since May 2021.

In seeking to fill the permanent position, I convened a search committee comprised of the following members of the campus community:

• Charlene Bedillion, Director of Financial Aid
• Maria Rosales, Provost and Professor of Political Science
• Gordon Soenksen, Interim Vice President for Advancement
• Christine Stracey, Associate Professor of Biology
• Gloria Thornton, Director of Information and Technology Services
• Rob Whitnell, Professor of Chemistry

Early in this process, John’s application emerged as the strongest, most comprehensive one. Following his campus presentation, the search committee reached consensus to recommend him for the position. I discussed this recommendation with Kyle Farmbry, our incoming President, offered the job to John, and received his acceptance.

John has extensive experience working in administration and finance in K-12 schools and higher education. He served as VP for Administration and Chief Operating Officer at Mitchell Community College in Statesville, NC, and most recently he was VP of Finance and CFO at Tusculum University in Greeneville, TN. John majored in History as an undergraduate at Miami University in Ohio, holds an MBA in Accounting from Indiana Wesleyan University, and is currently working on his doctorate in Management at Walden University.

John will now continue to exercise his considerable expertise in finance, budgeting, IT&S, facilities management, investments, accounting, student aid disbursements, and other areas here at Guilford. Working closely with Rob Whitnell, co-chair of the campus Budget Committee, John has demonstrated skills for collaboration and communication that are so essential to managing the financial work of the College. He was the chief author of the report on financial responsibility we delivered to SACSCOC in October, which garnered a good result (see below). He has provided excellent and timely communication about financial matters to the Board of Trustees and other stakeholders. 

I have found John an invaluable partner in navigating the financial situation of the College over the past seven months. Please join me in welcoming him to this new role in service to the Guilford community.

Vice President for Advancement Search

Gordon Soenksen, Interim VP for Advancement, is chairing a search committee that is reviewing more than 25 applications for the VP for Advancement position, the posting for which closed on Nov. 30. The members of this search committee are:

Kim Berry, Associate VP for Advancement Operations

Mitzi Bond, Executive Coordinator for Advancement and Grants Director

Stephanie Davis, Director of Donor Relations & Stewardship

Michael Dutch, Seth ’40 & Hazel ’41 Macon Professor of Business Management

Tim Kircher, H. Curt ’56 and Patricia S. ’57 Hege Professor of History

Brian Lowit ’98, Trustee

Alfred Moore, Registrar

Rachel Riskind, Christina B. Gidynski ’54 Associate Professor of Psychology

Beth Voltz ’91, Trustee

Adam Waxman ’07

This committee will narrow the pool, conduct preliminary interviews, arrange campus visits for finalists, and make a final recommendation to Kyle Farmbry.  We hope to announce a new VP for Advancement by the end of January 2022.

Recent SACSCOC Decision

At times in the past 10 months I have reported in various ways about the inquiries from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC) to which Guilford has responded this year. Following the appearance in the press in late fall 2020 of reports about Guilford’s financial situation, SACSCOC contacted us and asked for responses indicating our compliance with three standards of accreditation: sufficient faculty to support academic programs, sufficient staff to support student programming, and financial responsibility. We learned in the summer that the information we had provided about the first two of those was sufficient to warrant no further reporting, but SACSCOC wanted to receive follow-up information regarding the financial responsibility standard.  

Following the completion of our unqualified (“clean”) 2021 audit, in early October 2021 we sent a copy of that audit to SACSCOC along with other documentation regarding the financial accountability processes here at the College, including the work of the campus Budget Committee and Board Finance Council. The SACSCOC Board reviewed our documentation at its biannual meeting in early December and asked to receive follow-up information (what is known as a “monitoring report”) in 12 months.

This is good news. Such requests for monitoring reports from SACSCOC are common. In fact, following Guilford’s most recent reaccreditation, we were asked for follow-up monitoring reports on three standards. This provides us with the opportunity to be in ongoing communication with our accrediting body regarding our continuing progress in moving out of the difficulties that began in March of 2020. Guilford will provide its regularly-scheduled five-year report to SACSCOC in early 2023 anyway, so putting together the monitoring report a few months earlier will serve as preparation for that part of the ordinary accreditation cycle.

Original source can be found here.