Syracuse University announced its new vice chancellor and provost 455 days after its old one stepped down on Dec. 5, 2014, leaving the school without a permanent chief academic officer for about 15 months.

The university officially announced a search committee for the new provost and its members on April 16, 2015 — 132 days after Eric Spina announced he was leaving.

“I have not had that discussion, so I don’t really know why there was a gap,” said Charles Driscoll, chair of the provost search committee. “You might think maybe the search would start immediately or start later because we’re sort of doing this strategic planning exercise.”

Michele Wheatly was named SU’s vice chancellor and provost-designate on Friday. She’ll officially start her new job on May 16.

In the days and weeks leading up to the announcement, some faculty members noted that the search had been slow out of the gate, and one asked during a December University Senate meeting “what was taking so long.” The provost search was longer and took longer to start than searches the university has conducted in the past three years for a new chancellor and athletic director.

The committee held its first meeting last May, and Driscoll said there wasn’t much the group could do to move forward with the search over the summer since campus isn’t very active then. In that time, the university hired a search firm and formed a website so community members could provide suggestions.

In the fall semester, the committee held town hall-style meetings and gathered feedback. By December, the committee went through applications and began reducing the pool of candidates, Driscoll said. Off-campus interviews were held in New York City in January, and a group of finalists visited campus in the beginning of February, he said.

Based on feedback from administrators who met with the finalists and other research, the committee made a recommendation to the chancellor in mid-February, he said.

“People have said, ‘Why is it taking so long,’ but if you think about it, we started in April and couldn’t really do anything until September,’” Driscoll said. “September until now is pretty fast to find a chief academic officer.”

Robert Van Gulick, a philosophy professor and member of the University Senate, said the search process was probably on schedule considering the delay in starting.

Kevin Quinn, SU’s senior vice president for public affairs, said the timing was a matter of taking the amount of time needed to appoint a search committee with members who reflected the campus community.

While not all dean and senior leadership searches are the same, the search that concluded in Wheatly’s hiring was unusually long compared to others the university has conducted in recent years. In particular, the gap between Spina’s leaving and the formation of the search committee was lengthier than usual.

After Nancy Cantor said on Oct. 12, 2012 that she would step down as chancellor in 2014, it took 96 days for a search committee to be publicly announced. In total, 335 days passed from the time Cantor announced her planned departure until Kent Syverud was named her replacement. Professor Deborah Pellow, who was on the chancellor search committee, said the committee met through the spring and summer during that process.

George Langford, former dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, announced in December 2013 that he would step down the following June. The interim dean, Karin Ruhlandt, was appointed 124 days later, and she was named the permanent dean 291 days after that following a national search.

In a more recent example, Daryl Gross announced on March 18, 2015, that he was leaving his position as director of athletics. It took 19 days for a search committee to be announced and 93 days for Mark Coyle to be chosen as the next director.

Van Gulick added that there was an interest from faculty in getting updates on the search, and said Syverud would tell the senate during meetings that the process was moving along.

Given the need for confidentiality in the process, Van Gulick said there isn’t much more that could be said. The way candidates were interviewed and the lack of specifics until the announcement is pretty standard for these types of searches at private universities, he said.

If a candidate has a job at another university, they likely wouldn’t apply unless it was kept confidential that they were applying for a position at a different school.

In addition to occasional updates from the chancellor, Driscoll sent emails on an almost-monthly basis to the campus community providing updates on roughly where the committee was at in the process.

“I don’t think people think this hasn’t been a transparent process,” Van Gulick said. “It’s not typically the type of thing you get a lot of information about.”

Published on March 6, 2016 at 11:36 pm

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