Local News in Brief : Orange : G. T. Smith to Become Chancellor at Chapman

G. T. (Buck) Smith has resigned as president of Chapman College after 10 years to assume the newly created position of school chancellor.

The new position “gives me the opportunity to represent Chapman in the national scene without neglecting the college, and the opportunity to plan for change, instead of reacting to it,” Smith said Thursday.

Smith, 52, said that while most college presidents retire, he has “a lot of years left to serve Chapman.”

James Doti, dean of Chapman’s School of Business Administration, was named by the Board of Trustees as the college’s acting president. Doti served as Chapman’s acting president when Smith went on a four-month sabbatical late last summer.

Chapman College has a $25-million endowment but is facing a $1.25-million operating deficit, said Chapman spokesman Jerry Derloshon.

Given the school’s present economic difficulties, the administrative changes are a double blessing, Derloshon said. In addition to freeing Smith for fund raising, they will allow Doti, an economist and businessman, to add his “sound fiscal management” skills to the school administration, Derloshon said.