The California State University Board of Trustees last week named a search committee to find the successor to Sacramento State’s President Donald Gerth, one of three campus presidents to announce plans to step down at the end of the academic year.

During their two-day meeting in Long Beach, the trustees also changed CSU policy to grant individual schools more freedom to set outdoor smoking policy on campus grounds.

California State University officials hope to announce who will replace retiring President Donald Gerth during spring semester, according to an announcement last week by the CSU Board of Trustees.

A 5-member committee composed of the Board of Trustee’s chair, two other board members and the CSU Chancellor will conduct the nation-wide search for Gerth’s replacement.

Board of Trustees chairwoman Debra Farar appointed Trustee Bill Hauck as chairman of the search committee. The other appointees are William “Denny” Campbell and Martha Fallgatter with Farar and Chancellor Charles B. Reed rounding out the committee.

Board policy also requires the search committee chair to appoint an advisory group to the trustee’s search committee.

Representatives of Sac State’s administration, faculty, staff, students and alumni will be named to that group. The chancellor will also select a president from another CSU campus to serve on the advisory committee.

Gerth announced his plan to retire at the end of the 2002-03 academic year during a speech in August.

He will retire after serving 19 years as president of Sac State and 45 years in the CSU system as either a professor or administrator. Meanwhile, the Trustees responded to an appeal by student activists to strengthen smoking regulations by authorizing campus presidents to expand tobacco use rules on CSU campus grounds and properties, including issuing citations to violators.

The decision fell short of a request by Campuses Organized and United for Good Health, a student group with representatives at eight campuses, including Sacramento. COUGH had petitioned the board to mandate university presidents expand outdoor no smoking zones to 20 feet from CSU buildings.

Instead, the board left specific policy changes to individual campuses, requiring presidents to consider the concerns of faculty, staff and students before adjusting rules. State law bans smoking inside campus buildings and within five feet of building entrances and exits.