Committee searches for new Dean of Engineering

The search committee for a new Dean of Engineering began advertising the open position last week with the hope of having a new dean in place by the fall semester. The committee, which is comprised of professors from each of the engineering disciplines, illustrates what is standard about search committees at Tufts: very little.

Tufts is searching for several new high-level administrators right now: a Dean of Engineering, Dean of the Medical School, Dean of the Sackler School, Dean of Admissions, Dean of Academic Services and Student Affairs, Director of Financial Aid, Dean of the School of Nutrition, and possibly a new vice president.

Because so many of these positions are related to each other, several _ like the Sackler dean, Nutrition dean, and Student Services dean _ are not even being advertised yet. There are also a number of tenure-track faculty positions open, though no more than usual.

The formation of the search committee, the length of the process, the method of soliciting candidates, and the involvement of students in searches differ depending on the case.

"There is a rough rubric [for the search process], but each search is different in its design to meet the needs of the University and the position," said computer science chair Diane Souvaine, chair of the Dean of Engineering search committee. Souvaine also served on the Provost search committee last year.

The one thing common to each search is the strict attention paid to attracting a diverse pool of candidates. Before posting a faculty job description, it has to be approved by Director of Diversity Education Margery Davies, Tufts' affirmative action watchdog for faculty hiring in Arts, Sciences & Engineering.

Davies scrutinizes the activities of each faculty search committee at several points during the process and provides departments with related resources. Administrative searches do not go through Davies, but the same attention is paid to attracting diverse candidates.

"We pay a lot of attention to how diverse a pool a department has been able to attract when doing a search and the criteria they give for the choices," Davies said. Because of these efforts, over the last decade, nearly half the tenure or tenure-track faculty hired were persons of color.

The ease of formulating each job description depends on the position. For a pre-existing administrative or faculty position, it is simple to detail the duties involved and the skills needed to perform them. But if the position is newly created, the process of defining it could take months _ a problem the American Studies and English departments discovered last year when they decided to create a split appointment in Asian American Literature.

"It's thinking outside of the box, and that's something that takes longer," said English Professor Carol Flynn, who chairs that search committee. The committee is now in the process of bringing the four finalists for the job to Tufts for interviews, and a hiring decision should be made soon.

Though the engineering dean description was put together quickly, the committee may encounter difficulties in its search because it is looking for someone who has an established career _ and is therefore less willing to relocate than a person who has just earned a Ph.D. and is looking at a variety of places for their first professorship.

For senior faculty searches, sometimes advertising is not the best way to attract candidates.

"You're looking for people who are not probably actively seeking a job, so you advertise differently. You rely on your knowledge of who is out there in the field," said History Professor Howard Malchow, who is currently involved in a search for tenure-track professor in Chinese History.

The engineering dean search committee is likely to use consultants to advise it on how to reach out to potential candidates and other aspects of the hiring process, but no search firm will be hired. It falls to that position's direct supervisor to oversee the search process, select the search committee, and determine if a search firm will be hired and how involved Tufts' human resources department will be.

Isaacson, Miller, a Boston-based search firm, was used to find President Larry Bacow two years ago, but no firm was used in the hiring of Provost Jamshed Bharucha. But a firm is being used in the Dean of the Medical School search.

In the case of the Dean of Engineering, Provost Jamshed Bharucha organized and oversees the search committee. With faculty appointments, it falls to the chair of the department to select a committee, and often to chair it.

Whether students are involved in the search committees varies depending on the department and search being conducted. Some departments have a set procedure _ for example, the Political Science department, which invites students from the discipline's honor society to meet with finalists for faculty positions.

Others evaluate how to incorporate student input on a case-by-case basis. The Asian American Literature search committee will have candidates meet with an open group of undergraduate and graduate students from the American Studies and English departments. History, on the other hand, does not invite students to participate in its searches at all.

In administrative searches, the role of students is much more limited because of the need to maintain the confidentiality of the candidates. Usually the search committee is trying to woo people from other schools, which might cause trouble for the candidate if it became widely known. A representative from the Tufts Community Union Senate is sometimes invited to sit on high profile searches, as happened in the presidential search two years ago.

For the engineering dean position, the search committee is creating a student advisory committee, made up of students nominated by the departments, to advise the search. The exact role that this body will play has yet to be determined.

Though informal outreach occurs in every search, Bharucha and the engineering dean search committee are making a formal effort to gain input by holding an open forum with undergraduate and graduate students, tentatively scheduled for this Wednesday in the Campus Center. Once suggestions are collected and applications begin to arrive, the committee will determine the specific process it will use to narrow down candidates.

"We're looking to make a good match between what the candidate's strengths are and what the University has to offer," Souvaine said. "There's a lot of communication that needs to happen between the candidate and the committee."

Though Ioannis Miaoulis, the departed Dean of Engineering, also served as associate provost, the new dean will not take on both roles. No decision has been made about whether a new associate provost will be selected, according to Bharucha.