Committee members say task 'very challenging'

Members of the search committee looking for the next Bloomington campus chancellor said it might be difficult to find a candidate for the position by the new Jan. 1 deadline laid down by the IU board of trustees.\nThe board unanimously passed a resolution Friday directing IU President Adam Herbert and the search committee to quickly find a permanent IUB chancellor and senior vice president for academic affairs for the University by the spring semester. Board members said they ideally wanted at least one candidate presented to IU President Adam Herbert by Jan. 1.\nBut with the holiday season approaching and committee members having prior commitments, it might be hard to expedite the search.\n"That time frame will be very challenging," said IUSA President and senior Alex Shortle.\nIn a statement to the board at their meeting at IU-East in Richmond, Trustee President Stephen Ferguson asked the 23 members of the chancellor search committee to "alter their personal schedules" to meet the deadline.\n"The search committee is made up of very busy people, and you also have the holidays coming," said trustee and search committee member Pat Shoulders.\nShoulders added he was only speaking for himself but said he can't drop everything to concentrate on the chancellor search.\n"These are two periods where people have made commitments to other things, so their ability to participate in the search is going to depend on that," said search committee chair Trevor Brown, the former dean of the School of Journalism.\nShortle said most committee members feel an obligation to make the search their "number one priority."\nBrown said members of the committee who are professors will have an especially hard time dropping everything to concentrate on the search.\n"We don't have choices academically," Brown said. "They can't drop everything to do this."\nBut Brown cautioned that might not be the trustees' intent.\n"I don't think that's what the board of trustees is asking," he said. "What they're simply asking is try to make as much time as possible to get this done."\nThere are also questions as to how it might be possible to find an acceptable candidate after a three-year search failed to find one.\n"They are positions that require people to make very difficult decisions in an environment of fewer and seemingly declining resources," said Brown, noting it is sometimes difficult to find qualified candidates willing to take the job. "It isn't automatically the case that you're going to have lots of people going for these jobs."\nThough the search was narrowed down to three finalists in October, none of the candidates were selected for the position. Search committee members said they are not sure whether they will see any of the same names on the new list of candidates.\n"Since the president asked for the search to continue, it would be my thinking that it would be new candidates," Shoulders said.\nBrown said candidates from the first search might come up again but said there were reasons past candidates were not selected and therefore might be turned down for the same reasons as in the first search.\n"I'm sure we'll hear names again," Shortle said.