| Emory Report | Volume 52, No. 32 |
Campus Life search on the fast track by Michael Terrazas In hopes having a new person in place by September, the recently named search committee charged with finding a new vice president for Campus Life will be very busy the next few months. Chair Marshall Duke said the committee members are "essentially giving up their summers" so that Emory may have a replacement for Frances Lucas-Tauchar in time for fall semester. "In an academic setting, that's the treasured time," said Duke, Candler Professor of Psychology. "But it's an extremely important position with regard to the future of Emory." Duke, President Bill Chace and Provost Rebecca Chopp all feel that the primary challenge facing Lucas-Tauchar's replacement is to further integrate the social and academic lives of University students. To that end, they hope and encourage Emory faculty to apply for the job. "After all the wonderful work that Frances has put into this job, now has come the time to focus a little more directly and explicitly on the connections between the students' extracurricular, cocurricular and curricular life," Chace said. "We'd like to make those things more powerfully converge." A short list of qualifications listed on the notice that appears in the Chronicle of Higher Education includes a graduate degree (doctorate preferred), demonstrated commitment to student development linking the academic to other dimensions of their lives, and teaching experience. "That's critical," Duke said of candidates having experience in the classroom. "That's the scholarly component." "I see it as evolutionary growth," Chopp said. "[Vice President for Institutional Advancment] Bill Fox started the program; Frances built it into a large, complex division, and the next person can build upon the work of Frances and Bill but can work even more with the provost and deans to really create the single best experience for students within a large research university." Members of the search committee include Duke, Julie Barefoot (admissions and placement), Alicia Franck (University development), Susan Frost (institutional planning and research), Pam Hall (philosophy), Thomas Lancaster (political science), Anna Manasco (undergraduate student), Kim Newsome (Greek life), Karen Salisbury (student activities), Ronald Schuchard (English), Vanessa Siddle-Walker (educational studies), Claire Sterk (public health), Vaidy Sunderam (math and computer science) and David Wolf (graduate student). Duke said the committee hopes to interview initial candidates during the first week of July and narrow the list to two or three finalists by the end of the month. At that time, Chace said, the candidates will be made available to the wider campus through public meetings. Chace and Chopp will make the final decision, subject to approval by the Board of Trustees. The administrative relationship of the position will not change, Chace said; the new Campus Life VP will still report directly to the president. Helping out with the search will be Paula Carabelli of the firm of Witt/Kieffer, who has helped with all of Emory's recent upper-level administrator searches including the provost and the deans of both the theology and graduate schools. "Paula's an Emory parent, and she knows Emory better than some of the people on campus know Emory," said Duke, who added that even though summer 2000 has become a much busier one than normal, he welcomes the responsibility. "We are evolving," he said. "Emory's a different place than we were 10 years ago or eight years ago, and a different place from when Bill Fox first began his work as a dean for Campus Life. So we have to reflect where we are, and where we are is a place that is beginning to pull itself together as an integrated community of scholars." Return to May 8, 2000 contents page
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