U.S. Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Keenum begins work in January as Mississippi State University’s 19th president since it opened in 1880.

Keenum said he wants to bring stability to his alma mater, which has had three other full-time presidents, plus two interim presidents, in the past 10 years.

“I never want Mississippi State University to be anyone’s Plan B,” Keenum said during a campus tour.

The state College Board voted unanimously Wednesday to hire Keenum to head the land-grant university. The vote followed daylong interviews with campus and community groups in Starkville.

“Dr. Keenum is an excellent choice to lead Mississippi State University to the next level,” said Scott Ross, who headed the board’s search committee. “We are looking forward to him coming home to Mississippi State.”

The board announced last week that the 47-year-old was its preferred candidate to head Mississippi’s largest university with an enrollment of 17,000 students.

Keenum has been an agricultural economics professor at the school. He earned his undergraduate, master’s and doctorate degrees from Mississippi State.

Keenum was born in Starkville and raised in Corinth. He was sworn in as undersecretary in December 2006.

Keenum provided leadership and oversight for the Farm Service Agency, the Risk Management Agency, and the Foreign Agricultural Service. He is also a former chief of staff for Mississippi’s senior U.S. senator, Republican Thad Cochran.

The College Board has been searching for a new president since Doc Foglesong resigned in March.

Vance Watson was the school’s interim chief until last month when he resigned over a landscaping job worth just over $6,000 that an audit determined was done at taxpayer expense at the home of former Mississippi Higher Education Commissioner Tom Meredith. Meredith retired early amid the flap.