Provost and Senior Vice President Jamshed Bharucha last month announced the members of the search committee for the new dean of the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service and expects the body to identify a replacement next spring.
The search committee aims to find a replacement for Robert Hollister, co-founder and dean of the Tisch College, who announced his intention to step down this June after leading the college for 10 years.
The committee is composed of 11 members, including Bharucha, who serves as search committee chair, members of the Tisch College Board of Advocates and representatives of the faculty, staff and student body.
The committee recently created an advertisement for the position, and the university has employed the professional search firm Storbeck/Pimentel & Associates to collect nominations and solicit applications, Bharucha said.
The committee hopes to reach a decision sometime this April, according to Bharucha.
Senior Caitlin Payne, an undergraduate student on the committee, said the search is still in its beginning stages. The committee plans to meet the candidates in the spring, she said.
"We haven't looked at any applications yet," Payne said. "This semester, we will review applications as they come in, and next semester, we will begin to do interviews. After looking at many candidates, we will bring a select few to come to Tufts for a second interview."
At this point, she said, the committee will face its toughest hurdles.
"Our biggest challenges are to come when we actually have to make decisions," Payne continued. "So far, we've only described our ideal candidate."
The committee, both Bharucha and Payne stressed, is soliciting applicants both within and outside academia. The primary search criterion, they said, will be an ability to work with different populations.
"A professor would be the most typical candidate, but we are opening up the search outside of academia," Bharucha said. "Anybody we look at is going to have to have proven experience working with both students and faculty."
The committee hopes that its field of applicants represents a wide range of backgrounds.
"We are casting our net far and wide and not focusing on one type of profession or background," Payne said. "We are hoping that the ad will go to many different publications and news outlets in order to reach many different types of people. We want a lot of diverse applicants."
An ideal candidate will show an ability to create new ways of combining academics and active citizenship, as well as a commitment to diversity, Bharucha said.
"We would like to see candidates who are innovative and entrepreneurial and who understand how to weave civic engagement into a very high standard of academic excellence, which includes both teaching and scholarship," Bharucha said. "The candidate also must have a proven commitment to a sophisticated understanding of diversity."
The new dean must be able to communicate effectively with groups not only on the Medford/Somerville campus, but on the Grafton and Boston campuses as well, Payne said.
"The most important quality will be the ability to be a liaison between many different groups," Payne said. "The new dean will have to inspire and gain the trust of students, faculty, staff and community members. He or she will have to play a lot of different roles."
Bharucha said that Hollister's leadership, Tisch College's strong community of donors and the work of faculty, students and community members have ensured that Tisch College will have a strong future from which the new dean will benefit.
"There are more opportunities than challenges — opportunities to take Tisch to a new level of distinction as the premier place that infuses an ethos of public service into the learning experience and into scholarship," Bharucha said.
Payne said the challenges facing the new dean will hinge on maintaining Tisch's success in facilitating collaboration among a variety of groups on campus.
"The biggest challenge will be to inspire all different constituencies and get people to work together," Payne said. "Tisch is situated perfectly to mobilize diverse groups to achieve a common goal. His or her challenge will be to make sure that this continues to happen and that Tisch continues to be a forum for collaboration."
Tisch College Program Coordinator Rachel Szyman was confident in the committee's search process.
"What's key is that the university is supportive and engaged in maintaining active citizenship as a keystone of Tufts," Szyman said. "We are confident we will get a wonderful person and are very excited to see what new direction he or she will take us."
Szyman expressed excitement over what Hollister's replacement could potentially bring to Tufts.
"The new dean may introduce whole new areas of active citizenship that we haven't thought of and bring a new dynamic into the work."
