Hall a Tennessee finalist

Utah State University President Kermit Hall was named Tuesday as one of three finalists for president of the University of Tennessee system.

After a "long, exhausting day" in what is being called the most open presidential selection process in the country's history, the USU president said he is not concerned about the competition.

"I have done as little as possible to worry about who else is involved or to calculate the odds," he told the Deseret Morning News. "I don't see myself as running against them."

The other two finalists are:

• Jack Burns, vice president for academic affairs and research for the University of Colorado system.

• John Peterson, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs at the University of Connecticut.

The questions that remain in Hall's mind are whether he is the right fit for UT and whether Knoxville is where he wants to be.

Hall is an American legal and constitutional scholar who still gets books published and gives papers around the world. He also finds time to teach at USU.

"I intend to stay active as a scholar and I certainly want to find my way into teaching opportunities," he said.

But Hall has also held every administrative job, from department chair to dean and provost. He considers being president of an entire system a final rung on the administrative ladder.

The UT system includes two additional undergraduate schools, a health sciences center, space and agriculture institutes, and a "working connection" with Oak Ridge National Laboratories, research leaders in nuclear energy, high-speed computing, neutron acceleration and nanotechnology.

The UT job also would be highly political, an aspect Hall readily invites.

"Anyone who has lived in the Utah system of higher education has to recognize that being in the world of politics without getting lost in the world of politics is a very important part of what we do," he said.

Any politics present in previous presidential searches for UT have been erased in this search, which Hall said is being made very public in order to avoid more contention. The UT system has seen two presidents leave since 2001 amid clouds of controversy.

Hall will meet today with the UT Board of Trustees and find out in the afternoon if he is the next president. In a way, though, Hall already has moved into the house that is provided to the UT president.

Hall said that while on a tour of the president's house Tuesday, he spotted in the library the first book ever to bear his name. It was a collection of letters authored by James K. Polk, the 11th president of the United States.

"Even if they end up not hiring me," Hall joked, "that book and professor Hall will be in the university residence for a long time to come."

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E-mail: sspeckman@desnews.com