UMass Online CEO decision
expected soon

by Sarah R. Buchholz, Chronicle staff

he University system is close to having a chief executive officer for its new distance-learning venture, UMass Online.

     Five finalists for the position interviewed in Boston Dec. 19 and 20. The Amherst campus was represented during the interviews by Linda Enghagen, associate professor of Hotel, Restaurant and Travel Administration, and Journalism professor Ralph Whitehead.

     President William M. Bulger is expected to choose the new CEO during the next three weeks, according to Stephen W. Lenhardt, vice president for Management and Fiscal Affairs and treasurer. And UMass Online is scheduled to be launched early in the winter semester.

     Finalists for the position are Jeffrey W. Konzak, president of Walden Institute, a for-profit online learning organization based in Minneapolis; Jonathon D. Levy, vice president of e-learning programs for the Harvard Business School Publishing Company; Jacqueline F. Moloney, dean of Continuing Studies and Corporate Education at the Lowell campus; Richard A. Skinner, president and CEO of Georgia Global Learning Online for Business and Education; and Jack M. Wilson, co-director of the Severino Center for Technological Entrepreneurship at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.