January 6, 2015
MARSHALL NEWS MESSENGER (1/4/15) - Lawrence Ressler, interim president of East Texas Baptist University, arrived in Marshall in 2013 to serve as interim provost, and didn't expect to stay longer than six months.
That was until Samuel W. "Dub" Oliver announced his resignation in February of 2014 as ETBU's president. Ressler was then named by the board of trustees as the interim president of the college.
The beginning of the fall semester marked Ressler's first as ETBU's interim president.
"I think it has gone really well. We have a positive semester," Ressler said, "and what a great start, with the opening of Centennial Hall."
The opening of the new freshmen dorm played a big part in another positive factor for the semester for Ressler.
"Enrollment is up, we have got a positive atmosphere on campus, and everyone has a good attitude," he said.
While the ETBU Presidential Search team works feverishly in its search for the right candidate, Ressler has focused on school activities.
He was pleased with the new law enforcement academy.
"We are doing something that no other four year school has done before- offering the certification in the two year program," Ressler said.
"This is the second year that we have a master of business administration degree. We have had a nice-sized class each time, and are very optimistic about it," he said.
"We've got a really good group of international students. Prior to 9/11, we had about 120 international students, and then when 9/11 happened, and things started changing with immigration, we had to close our ESL program," Ressler said, "and now, we are working on reviving that."
As per the presidential search, the committee has slowed down some of its activities due to the holiday.
At the May Board meeting, Trustees approved AGB Search as the firm to assist in the presidential search.
"They will start more work in early January, and hopefully will be able to announce candidates soon," Ressler said.
"This is a confidentially-driven process to ensure that the best candidate is chosen," he said.
For 2015, and ETBU, Ressler is excited about the idea of knowing who the new president will be.
"We are at 96 percent capacity, so we are going to have to look at putting Lineberry back on line to be able to house more students, and look into what new majors we can offer, and graduate programs too," Ressler said.
"The institute is on a nice trajectory with balanced budgets," he said, ?"nd we are just going to continue doing what we are doing."
(Used by permission. www.marshallnewsmessenger.com, story written by Rebecca Holland, Education Reporter)