Emory Report

March 30, 1998

 Volume 50, No. 26

Provost search narrowed,
candidates to visit campus over
next few weeks to meet faculty

The search for a new provost has been narrowed to three, possibly four, candidates, and they will be coming to campus during the next two weeks for extensive meetings.

Edie Goldenberg, dean of the College of Literature, Science and the Arts at the University of Michigan will be at Emory March 30-31; John Bassett, dean of the College of Arts & Sciences at Case Western Reserve University, will be here April 6-7; and Rebecca Chopp, who currently serves as interim provost and vice president for academic affairs, will be interviewed April 9-10. One candidate who is yet to be confirmed may come either April 2-3 or 13-14.

"All the finalists have agreed that we may make their names public so we could announce times for the faculty to meet them," said Harvey Klehr, Mellon professor of political science, who is chairing the search committee.Dates and times of the meetings will be announced later.

Approximately 110 applications were received by the committee, according to Klehr. "We held screening interviews at the airports with 10-12 candidates," said Klehr. "The three, possibly four, candidates who are coming are the finalists. We hope to give the president a list of two to four names by mid-April with the search committee's comments and evaluations, and then he'll make a recommendation to the Board of Trustees." A new provost is expected to be in place sometime this summer.

The search firm of Witt/Kieffer, Ford, Hadelman and Lloyd was hired to assist the committee in the national search. Search documents identified nine priorities and initiatives the new provost will be asked to address in the first two years of his or her term; faculty meetings were held last fall to help identify those priorities. They include: developing a strong sense of momentum and direction around a clearly articulated academic vision and strategic plan; promoting the spirit of the Commission on Teaching; being recognized as an advocate for the centrality of Emory College within the University while strengthening the full integration of the academic program across all units; ensuring the strength and relevancy of the tenure and promotion system; and becoming an ally of the Campus Master Plan.

Members of the Provost Search Committee are: Harvey Klehr, chair, political science; Wayne Alexander, department of medicine, cardiology; Margaret Dickson, alumna trustee; Richard Freer, law school; Brooks Holifield, theology school; George Jones, biology; Jason Liebzeit, Student Government Association; Deborah Lipstadt, religion; Reynaldo Martorell, public health; William Murdy, Oxford College; Nancy Newman, ophthalmology; and Jagdish Sheth, business school. Harriet King, office of the provost, served as a staff liaison.

Edie Goldenberg

Edie Goldenberg has served since 1989 as dean of the College of Literature, Science and the Arts at the University of Michigan where she began her academic career in 1974 as an assistant professor of political science. Goldenberg became a professor of political science and public policy in 1985 and served as the director of the Institute of Public Policy Studies from 1987-89. She also directed graduate studies in the political science department, served on the University Budget Priorities Committee and held a variety of roles in the Academic Program Group, including membership on the Research Committee, the Integrated Technology Instruction Center Planning Committee and the Foundation Fundraising Committee.

After earning a SB degree at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1967, Goldenberg received her MA and PhD in political science from Stanford University in 1968 and 1974, respectively.

Her research area focuses on the role of the media and public policy, and she has received research grants to conduct studies on the role of the mass media in congressional campaigns, gender differences in U.S. Senate campaign coverage and AIDS news coverage. She is the author of Making the Papers: The Access of Resource-Poor Groups to the Metropolitan Press (1974) and Campaigning for Congress (1984). She has received many awards and fellowships including election to the National Academy of Public Administration in 1987 and the Goldsmith Research Award from Harvard University in 1993, and she was named one of Detroit's 100 Most Influential Women by Crain's Detroit Business in 1997. Goldenberg has been honored at Michigan with a Faculty Recognition Award and the Sarah Goddard Power Award. She has been an invited Fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Social and Behavioral Sciences and at the Woodrow Wilson Center.

A member of the trustee nominating committee of the National Academy of Public Administration, Goldenberg also serves on the boards of Great Lakes Bancorp and MIT.

John Bassett

John Bassett has served as dean of the College of Arts & Sciences at Case Western Reserve University since 1993, where he has also been a member of the Advisory Committee for the Center for Biomedical Ethics and the Self-Study Steering Committee. From 1984-93 he served as professor and head of the English department at North Carolina State University. Prior to that, he was a member of the English faculty at Wayne State University.

Bassett earned a BA from Ohio Wesleyan University in 1962. He went on to earn a master's there in 1966 and a PhD from the University of Rochester in 1970.

Bassett's research and teaching interests focus on American literature and literature of the South. He is widely published and is the author of nine books on Southern literature and authors, including Wherefore This Southern Literature? A Critical Tradition (1997), Thomas Wolfe: An Annotated Bibliography of Criticism (1996), and Harlem in Review: The Critical Reaction to Black American Writers 1920-1939 (1992).

He served as president of the Association of Departments of English of the Modern Language Association in 1991 and was a member of the executive council of the Society for the Study of Southern Literature from 1990-92. He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa associates, the National History Day board of trustees and the Professional Advisory Committee of the Cleveland Music School Settlement.

Rebecca Chopp

Rebecca Chopp, Charles Howard Candler Professor of Theology at the Candler School, was appointed interim provost and vice president for academic affairs in June 1997. From 1993-1997 she served as Dean of Faculty and Academic Affairs at Candler. She also chaired the Commission on Teaching from January 1996 through September 1997 and directed graduate studies at the Institute for Women's Studies from 1991 to 1993.

After earning her BA at Kansas Wesleyan University in 1974, Chopp received her Master of Divinity degree from the St. Paul School of Theology, Kansas City, Mo., in 1977. In 1983 she completed her PhD at the University of Chicago Divinity School and served as an assistant professor of theology there from 1982 until coming to Emory in 1986. In 1989 she was promoted to associate professor at Candler, becoming full professor in 1993 and receiving her distinguished appointment in 1996.

Widely published in the fields of women's studies, Christian theology and the role of religion in American public life, Chopp is author of The Praxis of Suffering: An Interpretation of Liberation and Political Theologies (1986), The Power to Speak: Feminism, Language, God (1989), and Saving Work: Feminist Practices of Theological Education (1995). She is also the recipient of many awards and fellowships including the 1990 Alumna Achievement Award from Kansas Wesleyan, the 1991 Distinguished Alumna Award from St. Paul School of Theology and the 1995 Founder's Day Award from Baker University, Baldwin City, Kan. In October 1997 she was named Alumna of the Year at the University of Chicago Divinity School.

Since 1994 she has served as president of the Southeast Region of the American Academy of Religion, and in 1996 she chaired the Women in Leadership Project of the American Theological Society.

­Jan Gleason


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