Provost candidates visit campus
By Emily Entress
The final stage of the search for the new provost of Santa Clara began this Monday with two hour-long open forums, both held in the Saint Clare room of the Learning Commons.
The new provost will take the place of Don Dodson, the vice president of student affairs, who stepped in to be the interim provost.
"The provost runs the day-to-day workings of the university," commented Michelle Marvier, a professor of Environmental Studies and Biology who is also the vice chair of the provost search committee. "They are the person who is really in charge of the quality of the academic programs on campus, the quality of student life programs on campus, they are also supervising athletics," she said. "It's a huge job!"
Dr. Gregory Hess is the first candidate for provost to visit the Santa Clara campus. During his two hour open forum session he set a casual and open tone, welcoming questions and an open dialogue among all 50 community members who attended each forum.
"It's nice to have a personal connection with the candidate, instead of it being all scripted," said Melissa Gilbert, a professor from the Department of Education who attended the afternoon open forum. "It's great to see that he has experience working at an academic vice president level because I think that's going to be very beneficial for our next vice president to have."
Dr. Hess does indeed seem to have ample experience to be the provost. He graduated from UC Davis with a degree in Economics, and went on to get his masters and Ph.D. in Economics from Johns Hopkins. Most recently he has served as the Dean of Faculty and Vice President for Academic Affairs at Claremont McKenna College.
"All the people we're bringing in are academically well qualified," commented Marvier. "They all have significant experience as administrators, they all seem quite capable of doing this job, so it really comes down to a matter of fit."
In order to gauge each candidate's fit into the culture of Santa Clara, the final four candidates will be brought on campus from March 17 through April 5 for on-site interviews to meet the faculty, staff and student body.
The on-site interviews are very popular among campus members, who embrace the opportunity to meet with the candidates face to face.
According to Dr. Singh, a professor of Civil Engineering who also attended the forum, "(the) interactive approach is really good because it brings out the special characteristics of the candidate, as well as it helps us to really understand whether the candidate is really understanding our culture or not."
To help them understand the culture, each person will spend two full days on campus, during which time they are scheduled to meet with at least 85 different people, including student leaders from around campus, various faculty and staff members, center directors, and of course, Fr. Michael Engh, S.J.
"We're making them work hard!" commented Marvier.
The candidates aren't the only ones working hard, however. The Provost Search Committee, which is a mix of trustees, staff, diverse faculty members and Jesuits, has been on the tail of the perfect candidate for a long time. Although they will provide information to the President, Engh has the ultimate say on who will become the next provost.
The official search began in December of 2010 when the Provost Search Committee recruiting candidates. According to Marvier, they worked with a search firm called Academic Search, Inc. The firm was able to pinpoint a large number of possible candidates, 55 of which actually applied for the position.
The identity of the next few candidates was recently released. Tomorrow, Dr. Donald Pope-Davis will be visiting.The next candidate, whose identity is yet to be revealed, will be on campus early next week.l
All students and faculty are encouraged to attend the open forum sessions and then provide feedback to the search committee.
Contact Emily Entress at eentress@scu.edu or call (408) 554-4546