Public gives search committee input on incoming chancellor

The committee charged to find a new chancellor for the IU-Bloomington campus wrapped up its public forum series Thursday with a number of students and faculty citing the University's reputation, academic concerns and advocacy as key issues the next chancellor will have to handle.\nTrevor Brown, the dean of the IU School of Journalism and the search committee's chairman, said the committee held a public forum Wednesday at the IU-Purdue University Indianapolis campus. He said few people attended the forum, despite being electronically hooked up to all of IU branch campuses, but the showing Thursday involved more faculty members and students.\nJunior John Connell told the committee he hoped the new chancellor, while understandably busy, will remain an advocate for students and have an open-door policy when it comes to student concerns. \n"Any student on this campus should be a concern of the chancellor," Connell said, suggesting the committee should look into how any final nominee is viewed by students at his or her perspective university home.\nFaculty members insisted the next chancellor not lose sight of the second part of the job, being IU's senior vice president of academic affairs in addition to Bloomington's chancellor.\n"As you search for an administrator, a manager and a fund-raiser, I urge you also to give high priority to teaching and learning," said journalism professor Claude Cookman. \nCookman said he hoped the next chancellor would believe strongly in fostering "the growth of students," adding that IU "cannot be equated to turning out employees."\n"Education is more than economics, and IU is more than a corporation," Cookman said.\nSPEA professor Ted Miller added that Indiana deserves at least one "extremely high quality public institution" and hoped the next chancellor would push IU in a similar direction, possibly emulating the relationship the University of Illinois has with its state.\n"U of I is a more important resource to Illinois than is IU to the state of Indiana," Miller said. "We're going to have to provide the services to the state of Indiana that it deserves from us."\nAnother concern for the next chancellor, pointed out by search committee member and Dean of International Programs Patrick O'Meara, is mending and preserving the international programs and reputation IU has as a global educator.\n"It is crucial to recognize we are operating in a global environment and participating on an international plane," O'Meara said. With significant declines in international student enrollment, O'Meara said it will be the next chancellor's duty "to take serious steps to make it clear how serious this situation is."\nKen Gros Louis, who served as IU chancellor from 1980 to 2001, has been serving as the campus's interim chancellor. He stepped in after Sharon Brehm -- who became chancellor after Gros Louis retired -- resigned in 2003 after two years in the position. \nBrown said the committee will begin to review applications June 15. Finalists will appear on campus for more public forums in the fall, and the committee will aim to deliver three names to IU President Adam Herbert by the end of December.\nThe committee has contracted Baker Parker and Associates, an Atlanta-based search firm that has helped other universities hire provosts and presidents, to help hunt for candidates nationally, Brown said.\n"The most interesting candidates we would be the most eager to speak with are people who are successful and happy where they are," Brown said. "We have to persuade them to apply." \n-- Contact Senior Writer Tony Sams at ajsams@indiana.edu.