Board of Regents announce finalists for Amarillo College president

On Tuesday, the Amarillo College Board of Regents named two finalists for the position of president, one an internal candidate, and one currently in a leadership role at a college in Florida.

The two finalists are Dr. Jamelle J. Conner, vice present of student affairs at St. Petersburg College, a four-year public college in Pinellas County, Fla.; and Dr. Frank Sobey, vice president of academic affairs, at Amarillo College. 

The next step is for both finalists to interview with the Amarillo College Board of Regents. Following Regent interviews, one or both finalists will be invited to participate in a series of in-person interviews and presentations at Amarillo College and within the community.

While not bound to a rigid deadline, Regents hope to name a president by year’s end. 

Until the next president is chosen, Denese Skinner, vice president of student affairs, will continue to serve as AC’s interim president.

The two finalists were chosen from among a dozen candidates who were recommended to AC’s presidential search advisory committee by Gold Hill Associates, a community college executive search firm retained by the College.

Amarillo College, which in April of 2023 won the nation’s highest community college accolade, the Aspen Prize for Community College Excellence, began its presidential search that summer – after then-AC President Russell Lowery-Hart was tabbed for the chancellorship of Austin Community College.

Presidential Finalist bios

Dr. Jamelle J. Conner, Ph.D., has since 2018 served as vice president of student affairs at St. Petersburg College, a four-year public college in St. Petersburg, Fla., which serves almost 40,000 students a year. She began her work at the college in 2008 as associate vice president of strategic execution and administrative systems support. Seven years later she was named provost of the St. Petersburg/Gibbs campus and served there for three years.

Conner earned a master’s degree in business administration at the University of Tampa (Fla.) in 2001, and she completed her Ph.D. in leadership and education, with a specialization in higher education administration, at Barry University (Fla.) in 2018.

Dr. Frank Sobey, Ed.D., vice president for academic affairs (VPAA) at Amarillo College, joined the AC faculty as an instructor of English in 2005 and steadily ascended since – to assistant professor (2009), chair of English, Humanities, and Languages (2014), dean of Arts and Sciences (2016), and associate VPAA (also in 2016). He was named VPAA earlier this year.

The San Antonio native has three degrees from Texas Tech University, including a doctoral degree in higher education administration. He has chaired or helped lead a number of high-priority initiatives at AC, from coordination of the school’s participation in Texas Pathways to supporting the development of the award-winning Rural Nursing Education Consortium.