MEMORANDUM

TO:                 The St. Lawrence Faculty

FROM:           President Daniel F. Sullivan

RE:                 Process For and Timing of Search for the Next Vice President of
                       the University and Dean of Academic Affairs

DATE:            December 18, 2006

Last week I provided for you a link to a memo, discussed at length with Faculty Council, that describes the position of Vice President of the University and Dean of Academic Affairs at St. Lawrence and conveys the qualities and qualifications I believe our next dean must have.  There was consensus agreement on this document at the end of last Thursday’s Faculty Council discussion.

I want in this memorandum to describe what next:  the process and ideal timing for our search.

The first step is to invite you to nominate candidates for Vice President and Dean from the list of full professors below, and to invite full professors to self-nominate if they know now that they would like to be considered.  This can be done either via a separate e-mail back to me, with copy to my assistant Susan Johnson, or via conventional paper communication.  You may nominate as many full professors as you believe would make good candidates (think of this part of the process as a kind of approval voting).  Nothing more than a name is required at this point, whether nominating others or self-nominating.  I will need your nominations and self-nominations by Monday, January 8.

In the second step I will share the results of this nomination and self-nomination process with Faculty Council, minus any of its elected faculty members who have been nominated (and would like to proceed as candidates) or who have self-nominated.  Prior to calling Council-as-search-committee together for this purpose I will meet with any full professor members of Council who were nominated and did not self-nominate to assess their willingness to stand.  Any who decide not to stand will then join Council-as-search-committee for deliberation on who should be on the short list.  Without being bound narrowly by the approval voting nominee results, but taking them very much into account, I and the Council members on the search committee will develop together a list of nominated candidates (excluding self-nominations, whose interest in the position we already know) that the process has indicated have substantial support within the faculty and with whom I will then meet to assess interest in being considered.

At that point we will have a list of candidates all of whom have indicated interest in being considered for the position of Vice President and Dean.  I will then invite all on that list to submit a current curriculum vita and a letter to the search committee outlining the case for their candidacy in response to my memo on the position shared with all faculty earlier.  The Council members serving as the search committee and I will review these documents and select from among the candidates a short list who will become finalists in the public phase of the search.

Details on the public phase will depend somewhat on how many candidates are left at this stage, but it will include an interview with the full search committee, interviews (individual or group) with future senior staff colleagues, interviews with key trustees (possibly by telephone conference call), a meeting with members of the Caucus of Faculty and Staff of Color, and a public forum during which members of the audience can ask questions in response to written and/or oral statements prepared by the candidates.

At the conclusion of the public forum phase of the search, the search committee and I will invite written comments on and evaluations of the candidates from faculty, staff and trustees involved in the process by a specific deadline.  All will be posted on a secure, password protected web site available for the search committee’s use.  Any comments or evaluations sent privately to me will be reviewed confidentially by a faculty member of Faculty Council, selected by his or her colleagues, to be sure that all communications on candidates reach the full committee.  After review of these comments and evaluations, the search committee and I will meet so that I may have their advice, after which I will select the next Vice President and Dean.

Since the Board of Trustees must ratify my selection of Vice President and Dean, it is my goal, and that of Faculty Council, to have the selection completed in time for Board ratification at its Saturday, February 24, meeting.  One advantage of this time-table is that the new Vice President and Dean would have the opportunity to play a role in selecting the next Associate Dean of the First-Year.   At the same time, it will delay our selection of the next Associate Dean of the First-Year until after the February Board meeting.

Please contact me, or a member of Faculty Council, if you have questions about this process.  Let us now join in this good work!

Names of Full Professors and Their Department Affiliations

Name	Department
Alden, Patricia A.	English
Bailey, Peter J.	English
Blewett, Robert	Economics
Brokoph, Gudrun	Modern Languages
Clark, Arthur	Education
Dargan, Joan E.	Modern Languages
DeFranza, James V.	Mathematics
DeGraaff, Robert M.	English
Draper, Alan L.	Government
Erickson, J. Mark	Geology
Exoo, Calvin F.	Government
Fay, Thomas S.	Athletics
French, Larry G.	Chemistry
Grant, J. Kerry	English
Greene, Thomas C.	Psychology
Harris, Glenn R.	Environmental Studies
Hinchman, Sandra K.	Government
Hornung, David E.	Biology
Horwitz, Steven G.	Economics
Hunt, William A.	History
Jockel, Joseph T.	Canadian Studies
Kling, Joseph M.	Government
Knickerbocker, Collen J.	Mathematics
Koon, Daniel W.	Physics
Lehr, Valerie D.	Government
Lock, Patti Frazer	Mathematics
Lock, Robin H.	Mathematics
Melville, Duncan	Mathematics
Papson, Stephen D.	Film Studies
Pomponio, Alice	Anthropology
Searleman, Alan	Psychology
Sheard III, Alec Michael	Mathematics
Singer, Natalia R.	English
Sondergard, Sidney L.	English
Stoddard, Eve W.	Global Studies
Thacker, Robert	Canadian Studies
Udechukwu, Godwin Obiora	Fine Arts
Ward, Susan E.	English
Weiner, Bruce I.	English
White, Steven F.	Modern Languages
Young, Jeffrey T.	Economics