Turns out, Charlie King isn’t a gone fishin’ sort of retiree.

Back in 2021, King retired after serving as James Madison University‘s chief financial officer and senior vice president of administration and finance for 25 years.

King and his wife, Sherry, knew they wanted to stay in the area after retirement. Their son Garrett works for the JMU Foundation and their daughter-in-law Lindsay works at the university‘s College of Business, so the elder Kings decided to build a house about 20 minutes from campus. 

For two years after retiring, King worked part-time for JMU in government relations, which meant traveling to Richmond to talk up JMU and higher education to lawmakers.

“I was really out of work with not anything to do for a year,” he says. “And quite frankly, I wasn’t enjoying retirement. I had worked my whole life, and I went from going 100 miles an hour to about 10 miles an hour, and I didn’t adjust real well to that.”

In March, Jonathan Alger, who’d served as JMU’s president for a dozen years, announced he would step down over the summer to lead American University in Washington, D.C.

Sherry King asked her husband if he had any interest in the job.

“I’ve been retired for three years,” King, 72, recalls saying. “I just don’t think that’s a possibility.”

But it didn’t take long for King to hear from a waterfall of alumni, former board members and Virginia lawmakers, all of whom encouraged him to lead the college through the transition.

King put his name into the hat.

“There was immediate coalescing around Charlie from all the various sectors,” says Kay Coles James, who sits on JMU’s board of visitors.

King, who started as interim president on July 1, says he’s found his primary role is to “keep the trains on schedule — and there’s a lot of trains on a college campus, particularly one the size of this university,” he adds.

On a typical morning, King might have a phone call with the state secretary of education’s office or sit in on a Zoom call with other public college and university presidents. During a break, he might walk over to the dining halls to see how long students were waiting in line.

The amount of time he spends meeting with other people, even as interim president, caught King by surprise. “I thought I was going to be able to come in here and put my head down and go to work,” he says.

In his last stint working at JMU, King oversaw the construction of numerous buildings — so many that the board of visitors elected in 2021 to rename the Integrated Science and Technology building King Hall. As interim president, King continues to keep a close eye on capital projects, including the renovation and expansion of Carrier Library, which opened in 1939. That reopening is tentatively slated for 2026.

King also puts out fires. Typically, JMU has about 4,800 freshmen students. This year, the university had more than 5,000. “We got a large freshman class, and we had some housing issues we need to resolve,” King says.

He also spends time addressing workforce issues. Like universities across the country, JMU is struggling to fill openings in its nursing department. Jobs that are lower paid — but still essential to the university’s operations — are also a challenge to fill, he notes.

Then, there are loftier matters that require a university president’s attention, like considering the impact artificial intelligence will have on JMU now and in the future.

“There’s always things for me to interject myself into or to help, hopefully, move forward,” he says. Convincing the board members to let him keep the job permanently isn’t one of King’s concerns, however.

“I’m finding out every day this is a young person’s job, not an old man’s job,” King says.

King definitely has energy to champion JMU’s successes, however.

The university had more than 37,000 applications from potential first-year students hoping to snag one of 5,000 slots in the 2024-25 school year.  About 29% of this year’s freshman class is from out of state, according to King. “That’s up for us,” he says. “We’ve been down around 25% or less for a couple years.”

The school is especially popular in the Northeast and the mid-Atlantic, according to the interim president.

“We’re identified by a lot of people as a school that you can come and have a really good experience,” King brags, “And you’re going to graduate on time, and you’re going to get a job and do well.”

Cultivating innovation

The JMU Laboratory School for Innovation & Career Exploration also provides King with a reason to cheer.

A priority of Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s administration, state-designated lab schools, which partner with colleges and universities, are designed to spur innovative education programs from preschool through 12th grade. As of September, the state Board of Education has approved 15 lab schools. In 2022, the General Assembly appropriated $100 million to the Virginia College Partnership Laboratory fund to launch and support the schools.

JMU’s lab school launched in August when educators welcomed 100 ninth graders from East Rockingham and Broadway high schools. A partnership between JMU, Blue Ridge Community College and Rockingham County Public Schools, the lab school offers an interdisciplinary and project-based approach to learning, according to Donica Hadley, its executive director.

It’s had a gradual rollout. Next year, ninth graders at two of the county’s other high schools will be invited to join the lab school. “We will be up and running in all four schools, ninth through 12th grade, hopefully, in the next five years,” Hadley says.

As juniors, students at the Lab School for Innovation & Career Exploration can elect to return to their home schools or attend JMU or BRCC, she explains. “Students have the potential to walk out … with their high school diploma and also college credits on the dime of this initiative.”

Champions of JMU’s lab school tend to stress the importance of giving back to the community surrounding the university. When pressed, they will acknowledge how the lab school benefits the Dukes.

“We are known for producing schoolteachers,” King says. “The school was founded as a teacher’s college, and we produce the second largest number of schoolteachers in the commonwealth now as far as public universities.”

Undergraduate and graduate students in JMU’s College of Education can take advantage of the lab school to see what they’re learning applied in the real world, according to King.

For his work as a graduate assistant, Kevin Wheedleton, a JMU grad who is currently working toward his master’s degree in teacher leadership at his alma mater, assists students and educators at the lab school.

“I am kind of the connection point between …  Rockingham County and JMU,” says Wheedleton, who earned his bachelor’s degree in elementary education in May. “Since it’s a brand-new program this year, there’s a lot of moving parts and a lot of uncertainty and questions.”

Wheedleton says he’s “ecstatic” about having the opportunity to work at the lab school in its first semester.

“Not just because it’s a great thing to have on my résumé, but it’s an opportunity for me to get to see school education at all levels,” he says. “It’s been very insightful to be able to work with Donica Hadley [and] the whole lab school staff on the introduction of this great curriculum and schooling opportunity.”

Being able to take teaching candidates on tours of the lab school will likely make recruiting education professors easier too, adds Kristina Doubet, a professor in JMU’s education department.

Doubet predicts that as education students have the opportunity to work in the lab school, JMU will develop a reputation for training teachers who are open to innovation. “This is a feather in JMU’s cap.”

‘One of the greatest jobs’

Only six presidents have led JMU since its 1908 founding.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand why university presidents tend to hang around, according to board of visitors member Kay Coles James. A former secretary of the commonwealth, she was appointed to the board by Youngkin and chairs the presidential search committee that will choose King’s successor.

“When people come, they enjoy the culture, the people, the work itself, the university, and so we tend to have longevity,” she says.

Other Youngkin-appointed board members who are serving on the search committee are Republican former state Del. Richard “Dickie” Bell; retired Marine Lt. Col. Jeff Bolander; Teresa Edwards, a regional president for Sentara Health; Food City President and CEO Steve Smith; and Nicole P. Wood, a lobbyist for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America.

James, who was appointed by then- President George W. Bush to be director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management in 2001, is also a former president of Washington, D.C., conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation and is an adviser to Youngkin’s Spirit of Virginia PAC. She doesn’t hesitate when asked whether she views her role as carrying out the Republican governor’s vision for the commonwealth’s universities.

“The governor does have an agenda,” she says, “and his agenda is to have one of the best quality higher ed systems in the country.”

Critics have said, though, that Youngkin is trying to exercise too much control over curriculum, whether in K-12 schools or colleges. Earlier this year, at Youngkin’s request, his education secretary’s office requested syllabi from George Mason University and Virginia Commonwealth University for courses about race, diversity, equity and inclusion. Ultimately, the two universities canceled the classes. The governor also issued an executive order in 2022 as one of his first acts in office, forbidding the teaching of “inherently divisive concepts, including critical race theory,” in Virginia K-12 public schools. As of July, the governor’s appointees make up the majority of state universities’ board members.

In addition to members pulled from the board of visitors, JMU’s presidential search committee also includes Mike Busing, dean of JMU’s College of Business; Warren Coleman, president and CEO of the JMU Foundation; Maribeth Herod, a former rector; Roger Soenksen, a professor in JMU’s School of Media Arts and Design; and Sydney Stafford, a JMU junior hailing from Bristow.

As of late August, the committee was in the exploratory phase of the search.

“We have done listening tours all across the state, listening to alumni talk about … where we are as a university right now and what are the skill sets that we need,” says James.

At the listening sessions, James has found, speakers often address similar hopes and concerns.

In 2022, the Carnegie Commission awarded JMU with a R-2 distinction, which recognizes doctoral universities with “high” research activity. Speakers at the meetings have wanted the university to continue to embrace research, James says, but to be careful not to sacrifice the university’s tradition of giving undergrads individualized attention.

At a time when higher education enrollment generally is on the decline, stakeholders have stressed it’s important for JMU’s next leader to have bold ideas about how to present the university “to not just Virginians, but to the country, as the school of choice,” she notes.

Additionally, multiple speakers have noted the next president will need to be skilled at fundraising — a necessity for presidents at nearly every university. “You cannot count on the General Assembly to produce your entire budget,” James says.

For the presidential search, JMU is working with Russell Reynolds Associates. The New York global leadership advisory firm will compile feedback from the JMU community to create a profile of what the university wants in its next president.

After that, the search committee, working with the university’s marketing and branding office, will produce a document, James explains, “that’s sort of our pitch piece, that tells why this is one of the greatest jobs in America, that tells about the opportunities that the next president of JMU will have, that will talk about the skill sets that we think we need right now and what the profile of the next president will look like.”

The search committee then will recommend a small pool of candidates, who will be interviewed by members of the board of visitors, who will offer the job to one fortunate candidate.

“It’s a great opportunity,” James says, “and a great place to work.” 

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JMU at a glance

Founded

A public research university in Harrisonburg, James Madison University was founded in 1908 as the State Normal and Industrial School for Women. It was renamed Madison College in 1938 in honor of President James Madison and became James Madison University in 1977. JMU’s 728-acre campus is known for its distinctive bluestone buildings, as well as Newman Lake and the university’s 125-acre Edith J. Carrier Arboretum, which has numerous gardens and wooded areas with oak and hickory trees over 100 years old. Harrisonburg, which has a population of 53,000-plus residents, is located in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, about 120 miles from Washington, D.C., and Richmond.

Enrollment^*

Undergraduate: 21,006

Graduate: 1,752

Student profile^*

Male | female: 42% | 58%

International students: 1%

Students of color: 23%

Academic Programs^*

JMU offers more than 70 undergraduate programs and 30 master’s degrees, an educational specialist degree and nine doctoral degrees. Fields range from accounting and computer science to international business, psychology and nursing.

Faculty^*

Full-time: 1,046

Part-time: 359

Tuition, fees, housing and dining^**

$27,158 is approximate annual in-state undergraduate residential cost, including tuition, mandatory fees, housing and meal plan.

^*Fall 2023

^**2024-25 academic year