UMass Boston’s Interim Chancellor Keith Motley confirmed Wednesday that he remains a candidate, amid rumors he is not among the three to four finalists in the school’s search for a new chancellor.
Asked to comment on recent statements by Student Affairs officials, who revealed in internal e-mails that he was out of the running, Motley told The Mass Media he was “keeping on as a candidate.”
The rumors have circulated on campus with intense fervor since last Friday. University spokesmen at both the UMass president’s office and UMB have strongly denied that finalists have been officially picked. The search committee meets next on Friday, April 1. The official number of semi-finalists for the position hovers around twelve.
“There’s a lot of rumors out here. I continue moving on as chancellor and doing what I’ve done from the very beginning. My responsibility is to continue to serve regardless,” he said. “I appreciate the love, I appreciate the affection and I feel that every day on UMass’ campus whether I was chancellor or not. My goal is to be chancellor, but at the end of the day I keep doing what I’m doing.”
Motley, who declined to comment on the possibility of student government officials voting no confidence in the search committee, said he remains committed to his current position as interim chancellor.
“My biggest thing is that I’m chancellor, I’m going to continue to be that until they drag me out of the office and then I just move on living my life, serving people. And that’s what my life has been about, serving young people, serving those who want to be educated in the city and I’m still committed to that,” he said. “At the end of the day I’m whole and happy.”
When asked if he would continue on at UMass Boston if he is not a finalist and does not get the job, Motley, who was at a kick-off for a Boston pre-school with U.S. Senator Edward M. Kennedy to campaign for more public service, said it was “transition talk and I’m not ready to transition anything.”
“I have an accreditation process to do, I have a gala on [April 20], I have the commencement coming up, students to serve,” he said. “So, it does me no good to get into the middle of all that kind of stuff. I have much work to do. I’m committed to that.”
Despite the rampant speculations surrounding the permanency of his post at the helm of the Columbia Point campus, the interim chancellor, appointed by UMass President Jack Wilson in August when Jo Ann Gora left for Ball State University, remains upbeat.
“I’m not going to get into what I’m going to do. I haven’t even figured out what I’m doing tomorrow yet,” he joked.
The search committee is expected to recommend finalists within the next several weeks to President Wilson, who will then pass on a pick to the UMass Board of Trustees to vote on in May.