Vice Chancellor and Provost Eric Spina called off the national dean search for the College of Visual and Performing Arts Friday. He changed current Dean Ann Clarke’s appointment to an indefinite one.

Controversy arose within the college after Spina announced in January 2008 that the VPA dean would come from an internal search. Students and faculty called for a national hunt, and Spina confirmed an external search Feb. 7, 2008.

Clarke accepted Spina’s offer for the position March 14, 2008, though her appointment was only guaranteed for 15 months. She was hired to replace Carole Brzozowski, who Chancellor Nancy Cantor appointed to university performing arts presenter.

Last year, Spina said the external search would begin at the end of the 2008-2009 school year. A few weeks ago, the VPA department chairs sent him a letter asking him to cancel the search and permanently extend Clarke’s appointment.

The chairs listed their reasoning for requesting that Spina cancel the dean search. The first was that they are pleased with Clarke’s performance as dean, and second was that bringing in a new dean might disrupt the progress of VPA’s initiatives. The economy was the third reason the chairs provided for their request; they said a search would drain resources, and that ‘it might be difficult to lure high-quality leadership in the current economic crisis.’

Spina then sent VPA faculty a letter with the details of the chairs’ proposal. Individual departments hosted meetings, and Spina had a two-hour open meeting with faculty April 6. He said some faculty members agreed with the chairs, some wanted to postpone the search and some wanted to begin it. Some were concerned that the chairs might not have spoken with faculty enough before making their recommendation.

‘Ultimately, I’ve decided that I think what the chairs recommend makes sense, given the really incredible progress that’s been made within VPA,’ Spina said. ‘In terms of financial issues, in terms of searching for faculty… and confronting a whole host of issues that really hadn’t been confronted previously, and that were really slowing the college down.’

Spina said he made his decision based on the progress and challenges facing higher education. He notified faculty Friday and sent an e-mail to students Monday.

Kendall Phillips, chair of the communication and rhetorical studies department, said the chairs started to discuss sending a formal suggestion in February. They agreed she was leading the college in a good direction, and it didn’t make sense to change that.

‘In the middle of the storm, you don’t want to change the captain of the ship,’ Phillips said.

He said his department held a vote on the issue, and that those in attendance unanimously agreed that Spina should call off the national search. Phillips was one of the four candidates – including Clarke – in the running for the internal search for dean last spring. He said that’s given him a sense of the complexity of being dean, and more appreciation for the challenges she faces.

Clarke will go through a formal review in Spring 2011, after completing her first three years as dean. Most deans are reviewed every five years, Spina said, but both he and Clarke want the earlier feedback.

Clarke said she was pleased with the permanent appointment. She said the college has made improvements in its re-branding process, which includes a new Web site, and moving certain programs to the Warehouse building downtown.

But the biggest challenge facing the college, Clarke said, is the economy.

‘I think with the progress the college has made, and with the current economic climate, it would be a hard time to have an external search,’ Clarke said. ‘With our move to the Warehouse, and so many large projects that are under way, I think it would have been problematic in a lot of ways.’

Clarke said the college will have to move forward, despite economic realities, and work to make sure it’s protecting its initiatives and faculty hiring. Spina agreed, and said Clarke is making progress in improving the budget situation.

He said the university budget situation has nothing to do with the cancellation of the search, and that if the college had decided to go ahead with the search, the money would have come from the administration, not VPA. The choice has to do with the quality of Clarke’s work, Spina said.

He said after looking at the situation, he wasn’t surprised the chairs came to him with a recommendation that he make Clarke’s appointment permanent.

‘To be totally honest, and I said this to the faculty over the last two to three months, I was asking myself this question: Should we really search? I mean we have a dean who is doing just a tremendous job. Does it make sense?’ Spina said. ‘So I was asking myself this question, and certainly I felt that this might be a good way to go.’

Jennifer Luzzo, a graduate student in music education, said 22 VPA student leaders were invited to a meeting with Spina Thursday, so they could share their opinions. Only Luzzo and two drama students attended. As a student on the Setnor Student Board, Luzzo said she had hoped for more student participation. She declined to say whether she agreed with Spina’s decision.

‘He made a very valid attempt to get opinions from faculty, as well as students,’ Luzzo said. ‘I’ve worked pretty closely with the dean on a lot of issues going on in the college right now. I’ve seen so much that she’s doing for positive change.’

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Published on April 13, 2009 at 12:00 pm