Nationwide dean search, a means of appeasment
After a student petition, multiple town hall meetings and numerous e-mails, the students and faculty in the College of Visual and Performing Arts influenced Vice Chancellor Eric Spina’s strategy for choosing VPA’s new dean. But their efforts haven’t cured all the school’s problems.
The Daily Orange reported today that on Feb. 7 Spina sent out an e-mail explaining that a dean would be appointed from a list of internal candidates by the end of the month. Although Spina will officially appoint the dean, an advisory committee composed of VPA faculty and one student will help choose the candidates.
Following this, however, a national dean search is set to take place in September 2009 – the wish of the students in VPA.
While it is commendable that the students organized and actually sparked a change in the scope of the search, it appears Spina’s work to appease them is misguided.
He has advocated for an internal search throughout the entire process. In encouraging this approach, he isn’t doing anything much different from what he initially planned.
The school will appoint a dean internally, just like the provost said. Nothing new there. And while an advisory committee has been established, it is still Spina who eventually appoints the dean.
Tacking on the external search appears to be a means of calming the student unrest, not of actually bringing a high-quality candidate to serve as the new dean.
What is most bizarre in this situation is the appointment of an internal dean and then the implementation of an external search. Spina is not calling the dean appointed at the end of this month an interim dean, even though that essentially defines what the position entails.
We can’t imagine many organization functions this way. Companies don’t simply hire someone for a year-and-a-half when they know no matter what they do in their time as dean, the organization will automatically conduct a more large-scale search for the same position.
It leaves the school – and its students – twisting in the wind, without a set dean to lead them.
And the reason for the quick internal hire seems absurd. The provost notes that the school has ‘a lot going on.’ He also comments that VPA is in the process of expanding and SU is caught up in a campus-wide campaign, making this an inopportune time for an external dean search for the school.
Every university has ‘a lot going on.’ So does every school at SU. The other four dean openings at Syracuse this school year were and are subject to an external search.
It’s part of campus life to have a healthy agenda of events and campaigns for new initiatives. And if so much is going on, then VPA should be looking for a stable and permanent candidate to lead the school through this transition period.
