Release date: Dec. 12, 2002
Contact: Nancy Seideman, Director, University Media Relations,
at 404-727-0640 or nseidem@emory.edu

Board of Trustees Chairman Announces Presidential Search Committee Membership

Ben F. Johnson III, chairman of the Emory University Board of Trustees, has announced the membership of the presidential search committee to seek the successor to President William M. Chace, who announced last month his intention to retire. Chace will serve until his successor steps into office.

Johnson, who is the managing partner of the law firm of Alston & Bird, will chair the search committee. Other Emory trustees who will serve on the committee are: Robert E. Fannin, resident bishop of the Birmingham, Ala., area of The United Methodist Church and vice-chairman of the Emory Board of Trustees; Charles B. Ginden, retired executive vice president of SunTrust Bank and secretary of the Emory Board of Trustees; Ellen A. Bailey, chief operating officer of Cardiology of Georgia; J. Neal Purcell, retired vice chairman of KPMG LLP; and Chilton D. Varner, partner in the law firm of King & Spalding.

Three Emory faculty members will serve on the committee: S. Wright Caughman, professor and chairman of the dermatology department in the Emory School of Medicine; Luke Johnson, Woodruff Professor of New Testament and Christian Origins in the Candler School of Theology and the university's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences; and Deborah Lipstadt, the Dorot Professor of Jewish Studies in the religion department of Emory College.

John Ford, the senior vice president and dean for the university's campus life division, and Christopher Richardson, an Emory College senior and president of the Student Government Association, will round out the committee.

In addition to the search committee, Johnson announced his intention to appoint advisory committees that would represent constituencies such as students, faculty, staff members and alumni. These small committees will be charged to propose candidates, seek additional nominations, and advise the search committee in various important ways throughout the search.

One of the first orders of business for the search committee, said Johnson, will be the engagement of a search consulting firm.

Johnson said he expects the committee to begin scheduling meetings immediately. A series of open forums and meetings with representative governance bodies will be scheduled in January to elicit the community's best thinking about the qualities to be sought in the next president and the needs of the priorities of the university for the decade ahead.

A Web site has been established to keep the public up-to-date on the search. That site is located at www.emory.edu/SECRETARY/Trustees/search.

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