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MC Graduate Dr. Dan Jones Leading Ole Miss Chancellor Finalist


Dr. Dan Jones, a Mississippi College graduate who\'s served as the leader at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, is the top finalist to serve as Ole Miss chancellor.

The state College Board named Jones as its preferred candidate to head Ole Miss. He serves as vice chancellor for health affairs and dean of the School of Medicine on the Jackson campus.

Jones will be in Oxford June 15 for a series of interviews with Ole Miss faculty, staff, students and alumni before the board makes its final selection. He would succeed retiring Chancellor Robert Khayat, a popular leader at the school for 14 years, a longtime law professor and former Rebels football star.

Jones also served on the Mississippi College Board of Trustees. He\'s been a former student, faculty member and dean at UMC. He and his wife live in Hazlehurst. UMC has more than 7,500 employees, 2200 students and more than 25,000 visitors, vendors, and patients on its campus every day.

"Our school has a remarkable history for one so small and relatively young," Jones said on the UMC Web site. The medical school began in Oxford in 1903 as a two-year certificate program and moved to Jackson in 1955.

Mississippi College sends a number of its graduates to UMC, and the two institutions 10 miles apart enjoy a nice partnership. UMC is home to some nationally recognized research centers in cardiovascular physiology and obesity, neuroscience and women's health.

If selected for the post, Jones would be leading an Ole Miss program that's grown in enrollment and is seeing its football program enjoying national prominence, including a win in the Cotton Bowl last season.