Jay B. Silveria, executive director of Texas A&M University’s Bush School of Government & Public Service in Washington D.C., has been named the next president of the University of Arkansas System.
The system’s board of trustees on Monday announced that it had unanimously approved the selection of Silveria, a retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. and a former superintendent at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Silveria is expected to start his new role Jan. 15. He was picked to succeed Donald R. Bobbitt, who is retiring after more than 13 years at the helm of the state’s largest higher education system.
The board of trustees selected Silveria after a national search that concluded with a series of specially called meetings to consider candidates for the position. Matthew Waller, dean emeritus of the business school at the University of Arkansas, is among those who officially applied to be the next system president, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported.
The board also considered candidates who did not apply, including former Gov. Asa Hutchinson.
Other candidates included Edsel Ing, professor and chair of the department of ophthalmology and visual sciences at the University of Alberta; Patrick O’Connor, CEO and head of Federal Prison Industries (an inmate-training program operated by the Bureau of Prisons); and Chris Thomason, vice president for planning and development for the UA System.
“We are tremendously honored to have had the highest quality of candidates show interest in being the next president of the UA System, and also to have a dedicated group of trustees that was very deliberate in choosing the right person for this important position,” Kelly Eichler, chair of the board of trustees, said in a news release. “I believe we’ve found a proven leader who brings unmatched qualities, achievements and experience from his time in the military and in higher education to our System that will help us navigate the myriad of opportunities and issues facing our campuses, divisions and units.”
Silveria retired from the Air Force in 202o after a 35-year-career as a command pilot, the last three years of which he spent as superintendent of the U.S. Air Force Academy. Shortly thereafter, he was appointed to lead Texas A&M’s Bush School, which serves graduate students looking to boost their careers in government and public service.
“The last several years of working in a university setting have given me a firsthand view of the transformational power of public higher education in peoples’ lives,” Silveria said in the release. “I am humbled by this opportunity to lead the UA System and feel that there is tremendous potential to build on its outstanding reputation and high-quality programming.”
As a deputy commander in the Air Force, Silveria oversaw air operations in a 20-nation area of southwest Asia, including Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria. He was also a commander of the U.S. Air Force Warfare Center at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada and vice commander of the 14th Air Force Space Command at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
Silveria is a 1985 graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy and in 1986 completed undergraduate pilot training. He has flown combat missions over the Balkans and Iraq and served as vice commander at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. He has been awarded a Distinguished Service Medal and a Bronze Star, along with multiple Air Medals, during his career.
Silveria holds a bachelor’s from the U.S. Air Force Academy and a master’s in social science from Syracuse University. He attended the National War College at Fort Lesley J. McNair in Washington, D.C., and was a senior executive fellow at Harvard University, where he also attended the Harvard Seminar for New Presidents at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
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