A Kent State University dean will become the next president of Central Washington University.

James Gaudino was selected Friday evening to replace CWU President Jerilyn McIntyre, who is retiring after eight years in the position.

He will earn a base salary of $290,000, about $60,000 more than McIntyre. He was making about $250,000 at Kent State, plus incentives that Central could not match under state law.

The boost in pay over McIntyre's salary was required to attract qualified candidates, who can expect to spend their tenure earning close to the same amount as their hiring salary, Morrison said.

Gaudino, 59, is scheduled to take charge Jan. 5, roughly a year after McIntyre announced that she would retire once the school's 14th president was chosen.

Sid Morrison of Zillah, chairman of the university's board and a retired state and federal legislator, said Sunday that Gaudino rose to the top of the list among the three finalists.

"We feel strongly and unanimously that he's the right person for the Central job at this time," Morrison said.

Gaudino, dean of the Kent, Ohio, university's School of Communication and Information, said he was not seeking a new position when a colleague nominated him. But the idea of running a regional university, plus a chance to return to the West Coast, prompted him to apply, Gaudino said in a telephone interview Sunday.

Gaudino grew up in Napa, Calif., when the agricultural community north of San Francisco was similar to Ellensburg.

"The strong foundation that exists at Central offers all of us an exciting opportunity to propel a premier regional university to national prominence. I can hardly wait to get started," Gaudino said in a statement released by the university.

Morrison said Gaudino's priorities will include helping Central's business school attain national accreditation and developing the school into a research center on such regionally important issues as water.

Gaudino said the research ventures are one way to secure funding from outside sources. That will become more important as higher education faces funding cuts in the state budget.

Although the other two candidates were either a college vice president or president, Morrison said Gaudino's experience on and off a college campus made him the best fit. Provosts and vice presidents, though next in line to the president, tend to focus on a school's academic programming, while a dean deals more broadly with both internal and external issues, Morrison said.

The other candidates were Aaron Podolefsky, president of the University of Central Missouri, and Greg Weisenstein, provost and vice president for academic affairs at the University of North Dakota.

A third finalist, Linda Bennett, provost and vice president for academic affairs at the University of Southern Indiana, withdrew midway through the process.

Gaudino has a doctorate in communication from Michigan State University, a master's degree in management from Troy State University and a bachelor's degree in humanities from the U.S. Air Force Academy.

He was selected as the first dean for the Kent State communications school five years ago.

His accomplishments there include building relationships with local community colleges to increase diversity in the Kent State communications program and raising $1.6 million in private funding to enhance a state project to renovate the program's building, according to the CWU statement.

Before taking the dean's job, he spent 15 years as executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based National Communication Association, which supports academic research in the communications field.

Gaudino is married and has two sons, ages 21 and 23. He said he expects to practice his fly-fishing, among other hobbies, once he arrives in Central Washington.

If everything proceeds as well as he expects after his three recent visits here, he could retire from the CWU presidency, he said.

"I would certainly be happy for this to be my last job," Gaudino said.

* Mark Morey can be reached at 577-7671 or mmorey@yakimaherald.com.