The faculty members for the Presidential Search Committee will be elected by the end of next week, according to Faculty Senate Chair Jonathan Loesberg.
The three elected faculty members will serve under board Chairman Gary Abramson on a committee that will choose a permanent replacement for Interim President Neil Kerwin.
At its Aug. 30 meeting, the Faculty Senate determined that the committee members would be chosen through a faculty-wide vote, Loesberg said. The list of nominees was sent out in a memo to the entire faculty last Thursday along with voting instructions. "Hopefully the committee that is formed will be faithful to the need to get the highest quality candidates here on campus," said Kogod School of Business professor Frank DuBois.
The Senate determined that the three faculty members with the most votes would be selected for the committee, under the condition that the members all came from different schools.
"Different faculty from different schools have different perspectives," Loesberg said. "We wanted the broadest possible representation of faculty perspectives."
If faculty members from the same school all had the top votes, the second and third positions would go to faculty members with the highest votes from other schools, Loesberg said. This will prevent the larger schools from overpowering the smaller ones on the committee.
"In the past, the CAS [College of Arts and Sciences] was dominant in how our campus made decisions," said School of Communication professor John Doolittle. "The membership on the University Senate was definitely tilted toward CAS. Today, I'm not convinced that CAS has the ability to keep other units from being heard."
A July 10 announcement from the board of trustees said the committee will be comprised of eight trustees, three faculty members, two students, one dean and one staff member. The announcement indicated that Gary Abramson will identify the trustee, dean and staff representatives, while the student government will choose the student members.
The final decision on the committee members will be made at the Sept. 15 board of trustees meeting, when the elected representatives will need to be approved by the board.
Economics department chair John Willoughby said he does not expect tensions among the different schools in the presidential search process because CAS can only have one representative on the committee.
"More important, I think all the faculty want similar qualities in a new president: strong commitment to building AU into an even better university, personal integrity, fundraising ability and a commitment to academic inquiry," he said.
According to the announcement, the duties of the committee will be to "assess AU's unique strengths, challenges and opportunities; develop a leadership profile; assemble a list of candidates from campus, national and international recommendations; assess candidate qualities and qualifications; create a short list of top candidates for a campus visit and review by constituent groups; and recommend one or more finalists to the board for final review and selection."
Faculty Nominees for Committee
Excerpt from e-mail to all full-time AU faculty members:
"The people below have been nominated and have agreed to serve (if you nominated someone whose name does not appear, that is because that faculty member declined to serve). There are three positions for faculty on the Presidential Search Committee and you should vote for three members. The faculty members who win the most votes and come from three different University Colleges or Schools will be elected. Votes are due into the new Senate Office (The Sports Annex) by Friday, Sept. 15 at 4 p.m. Votes will be counted that day. Members elected will be announced to the Faculty by email as soon as practicable thereafter."
Nominees:
Mohammed Abu-Nimer, SIS Patricia Aufderheide, SOC Robert Blecker, CAS Robin Broad, SIS David Culver, CAS Katherine Farquhar, SPA Charlene Gilbert, SOC Phil Jacoby, KSB Robert Jernigan, CAS Alan Kraut, CAS Mieke Meurs, CAS Mary Mintz, Library Karen O'Connor, SPA Jerzy Sapieyevski, CAS Stephen Silvia, SIS Paul Wapner, SIS
