Searcy businessman Scott Roussel has been elected chairman of the University of Central Arkansas Board of Trustees.
Roussel has served on the UCA Board of Trustees for the past nine years and graduated from UCA in 1978 with a Bachelor of Business degree. He is the president of Exit Realty Arkansas and Oklahoma. Roussel replaces Dr. Harold Chakales, who served as chair during the 2009-10 academic year. He will take over the post in February.
Trustees also elected Bobby Reynolds as vice chairman and Victor Green as secretary.
“It’s a privilege to serve as chair of the university that I graduated from and deeply love, respect and care for very much,” Roussel said. “Anything that I can help lead, I hope will help improve the university. It is truly an honor to be here.”
Roussel recently spoke about some of his goals including seeing UCA’s graduation rate reach the national average within the next five to six years. Currently, UCA’s graduation rate is 50 percent. The latest national average stands at 55.9 percent.
“We have to pay attention to this,” Roussel said.
One way to improve the university’s retention and graduation rate is to build on UCA’s Honors College and residential colleges, he said.
“Our Honors College is the best in the state and our residential colleges have been a tremendous success,” he said. “I think both are helpful to us. We need to think of ways to get more students involved in the residential colleges. If they are not a part of a residential college when they are freshmen, we need to develop a structure to help them understand what they need to do to obtain a degree.”
Roussel also noted he would like to see the university grow. Over the last two years, enrollment has either remained flat or declined, he said.
“I would like to see the university grow at a manageable rate,” Roussel said.
Increasing the board’s involvement in committees is another goal of the new chairman. Roussel feels more involvement will help trustees make better decisions regarding the future of the university.
Roussel is pleased with the direction the university is going, but says UCA continues to face challenges such as funding.
“We need to look at ways to get our fair share of state appropriations,” he explained. “Another challenge is securing private money. We have to do a better job at getting private dollars for UCA’s success.”
