Provost search committee holds an open forum

About 30 people attended an open forum Wednesday afternoon to discuss the upcoming search for the IU provost with the committee charged with that task. \nThe discussion was led by the head of the search committee, IU law school professor Fred Cate. He said the goal of the forum, as well as a major focus of the committee, is to hold “as open a search” as possible given the short time-frame with which that committee is working. He urged that the committee is “anxious to receive any input at any time” regarding the search. \nThe event was held in the Frangipani Room of the Indiana Memorial Union, and featured discussion about issues ranging from diversity to administrative relationships to the very definition of the position of IU provost. \nThe committee has until June 8 to finalize a short list of candidates for submission to Interim Provost and President-elect Michael McRobbie, who will conduct final interviews and make the ultimate decision regarding who will succeed him as provost, according to a deadline calender given to the Indiana Daily Student. That selection will be made the following week, and the provost will be installed into office when McRobbie makes the transition to the IU presidency on July 1. \nAudience members peppered the committee with questions for the full hour of the forum. Topics covered several key issues, including University diversity, the provost’s accessibility to students and the timing and internal nature of the search itself. \nBecause the search committee will only review candidates currently serving at the University, Cate expressed an optimism in their ability to select a top administrator under such a tight deadline. He said the significant experience many committee members have already had working with candidates will enable them to make informed recommendations on a potential provost’s leadership style.\n“You don’t have to ask questions like ‘Do you get along with students?’” Cate said. “If they don’t get along with students we are going to have had years to figure out they don’t get along with them.”\nKevin Brown, director of the Hudson and Holland Minority Scholars Program, raised questions of faculty, staff and student diversity to the committee, and urged them to pick a candidate who would make expanding campus diversity a top priority. \nBrown gave the example that, although outoging-President Adam Herbert’s efforts have improved diversity on IU’s campus, black enrollment at IU is still down from what it was during the Ronald Reagan administration, and he believes some of his colleagues don’t “understand how bad the situation is” with regards to campus diversity. \nAnother major issue the audience seemed concerned about was the relationship between the provost and IU faculty, and the ability of the next provost to relate to other academic leaders on campus. Committee member Peter Kaczmarczyk of the Wells Library and president of the CWA Local 4730 expressed his hope to find someone who would not “lose touch” with the academic community after stepping into an administrative role.\nBrown said he believes the committee should not lose sight of the value of administrative experience when considering candidates. Brown said administration requires “a fundamental set of characteristics” learned from being a faculty member, but that time spent in administration is also invaluable.\n“I would hesitate to make someone a provost who’s not had some significant administrative experience,” Brown said.\nUpon their approval, IU’s next provost will step into a position that has been tough to define since its inception last year. With questions remaining about the provost’s formal responsibilities and a job description the committee’s chair agreed was near-impossible to entirely fulfill, Cate stressed the committee’s need to assess the importance of specific strengths each candidate demonstrated. \n“Every candidate has some weaknesses as well as obvious strengths and it’s going to be balancing all of that out as opposed to looking for the one person who fits everything,” Cate said. \nAnother concern expressed by some of those in attendance was the fact that, since the provost position is relatively new, relationships with other campus leaders like the president are hard to define. \nJohn Applegate, associate dean of the IU law school and an IU Presidential Fellow, termed the relationship between the University provost and the IU president as a “work in progress.” He said the provost needs to represent and push for the best interests of the Bloomington campus, as that institution’s academic leader. \n“(The) provost needs to be that advocate for the campus in some of the ways that chancellors are on other campuses,” Applegate said. \nCate said he hopes the internally-focused search “draws on the exceptional talent on (the IU) campus.” He addressed concerns related to the responsibilities and expectations of the provost position, admitting that the provost is sometimes expected to be “everything to everybody,” and termed the position something of an “impossible” job, given its varied demands. \nMcRobbie served as the University’s first provost following IU’s 2006 administrative restructuring – eliminating the University’s chancellor position and adding McRobbie as interim-provost. With the structural transition now passed, Cate expressed a desire to have the next provost potentially serve for several decades. \n“I think many people have said and I would certainly agree, we are looking for a Herman Wells,” he said. “We’re looking for somebody who can really establish not just the intellectual leadership but a real sense of the soul of the University.”