Atlanta — June 11, 2008

Dr. Timothy S. Mescon, dean of the Michael J. Coles College of Business at Kennesaw State University, in Kennesaw, Georgia since 1990, and the College’s Tony and Jack Dinos Eminent Scholar, was named today as the fourth president of Columbus State University (CSU) by the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia (USG).

Mescon is expected to assume his new post in August. He replaces Dr. Frank Brown who retires on June 30, 2008 after 20 years as president at Columbus State.

Regent Donald Leebern served as the chair of the Special Regents’ Committee charged with interviewing presidential finalists submitted by the campus-based Presidential Search and Advisory Committee and making a recommendation to the chancellor and full Board of Regents for final approval. “The board was impressed with Dr. Mescon’s ‘Seize the Day’ approach to tackling the challenges of leadership and meeting the needs of target groups with precision. He is a go-getter, and we feel he has a great deal to offer Columbus State,” Leebern said.

“We are thrilled that Dr. Mescon will lead Columbus State into the future. He is a tremendously talented academic administrator, with years of strong experience building communities and forging paths of scholarly excellence,” said Dr. Susan Herbst, USG executive vice chancellor and chief academic officer. “With Dr. Mescon at the helm, there is no question that CSU and the entire region will achieve an even higher level of achievement for faculty, staff and students. Columbus State is poised to reach great heights across disciplines, and Dr. Mescon will build – with panache – on the ambition we see everywhere in Columbus.”

Under Mescon’s guidance, the Coles College of Business, with the support of the Board of Regents, created Kennesaw State’s first three Eminent Scholar Chairs. The Coles College enrolls close to 5,000 undergraduate and graduate students and operates Georgia’s largest executive MBA program. The 2008 edition of Princeton Review named the Coles College one of the best business schools in the nation. The executive MBA program, among the largest in the United States, was ranked third in the nation in eBusiness and 10th in teamwork by Business Week. The Cox Family Enterprise Program was named among the Top 5 in the nation by Fortune Small Business.

In addition to Mescon’s duties as dean, he serves as a faculty member at the Stonier School of Banking and on the Advisory Board of the Kingston University School of Business and Law in the United Kingdom. He has served on the faculties of Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona, and the University of Miami. Mescon was the inaugural dean of the Perdue School of Business at Salisbury University, in Salisbury, Maryland. Additionally, Mescon has served as a visiting lecturer at the University of Aston in Birmingham, England, and Nanjing University in China, and as a visiting fellow at The Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Mescon received his Ph.D. in Strategic Management/Entrepreneurship from the University of Georgia (1979), an MBA from Southern Methodist University (1976) and a bachelor’s degree in Sociology from Tulane University (1975).

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