From USC & the Autry National Center of the West
Just taking note of a giant change at the top of a major Southern California educational powerhouse and for a museum and research center that has flourished and aroused some antipathy, too, when it did so. The major media, of course, will detail the succession of C.L. Max Nikias as the 11th Trojan president, replacing the increasingly legendary and retiring Steven B. Sample. Nikias, who was Sample's No. 2 and served as the engineering school dean during a period of its explosive growth, is a Greek Cypriot who did his undergraduate work in Athens and earned his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees at SUNY Buffalo before appointments at UConn and Northeastern. He's an accomplished scholar, fund-raiser and emerged from a field of 75 candidates and seven finalists, all of them top dogs at big universities. Meantime, over in Griffith Park, John Gray has said he will retire as CEO of the museum and research institution founded by country western star Gene Autry and his wife, Jackie, and Monte and Joanne Hale. The Autry since has merged with the beleaguered Southwest Musuem in Mt. Washington, a marriage that brought with it an often fractious supporters suspicious of the proven better stewardship of the folks in Griffith Park.
Nikias, former engineering dean and Steven Sample's No. 2, ascends to top post
The LA Times take on appointment of Nikias
Comments