Tufts University faculty and administrators are still trying to determine who will be the new Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences (A&S) for the 2005-2006 academic year.
Susan Ernst, who currently holds the position, told the administration and the student body earlier this semester that she plans to step down.
"I have decided to leave my position as Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences, effective June 30, 2005," Ernst wrote in a letter to the Tufts community. "This is not a decision that I made easily."
Ernst, however, said she does not plan to leave the Tufts community entirely. She will remain at Tufts and focus on teaching and research in the Biology Department, primarily in the field of genetics.
Over the last 15 years that Ernst worked at the University, she held a variety of leadership positions, including Dean of Natural and Social Sciences, as well as Dean of A&S.
Ernst has also demonstrated her expertise in the field of biology. According to a letter from University President Lawrence Bacow and University Provost Jamshed Bharucha, she cloned the first gene in the Biology Department and helped to bring molecular technology to the Medford and Somerville areas.
Her research has been supported by grants from the National Institute of Health (NIH) and the American Cancer Society. In 1997, Ernst was elected to the American Association for the Advancement of Science and worked as the Chair for Biological Sciences in 2002.
Bacow and Bharucha also highlighted Ernst's accomplishments as Dean of A&S. Ernst was key in reorganizing the Dean's office in order to give more of a voice to graduate education at the University. She worked to develop closer ties between A&S and Tufts' professional schools. She also drummed up support for undergraduate financial aid and faculty development.
"[Ernst's] high standards, integrity and passion for teaching have been the hallmarks of her tenure [as Dean]," Bacow and Bharucha wrote in their letter. "She has established a vision for the school that will serve as the foundation for its continued future success for many years to come."
Soon after Ernst announced her decision, the search began for a new Dean to fill the void left behind by Ernst's impending departure. According to Molly Stutzman, executive assistant to the Provost, the number of possible replacements has been whittled down to a few, but the process continues.
Stutzman said Tufts performed a very comprehensive search to find the best possible candidates to fill the position of Dean of A&S. Administrators placed an advertisement in the Chronicle of Higher Education, as well as other major academic sources read by faculty and students from around the world.
The ad called for, among other things, candidates able to "articulate and demonstrate strong commitment to the value and importance of research and scholarship to the mission of a university."
The University also conducted a broad outreach program to other colleges and universities around the country. Faculty and administrators talked to potential candidates on the phone and in person to convince them to apply for the position.
At the same time, Bharucha said he formed a Search Advisory Committee made up of members of the faculty and the administration that met with all the candidates to try to get to know them better and explain why they would fit in so well with the Tufts community. The goal, according to Stutzman, is to find an applicant with a wide variety of strengths that he or she can bring to the Tufts community.
