Letter to the Editor

We attended and participated in the recent meeting of the CAS faculty called by President Glassner to discuss the upcoming search for a new Dean of the College.  As much as we appreciate the interest taken in the deanship by the authors of the recent The Pioneer Log editorial, we disagree with the editorial’s characterization of the meeting as one in which faculty and President Glassner “debated the merits of external and internal searches.”

In our view the meeting was chiefly an occasion for President Glassner to solicit and listen to far-ranging views of faculty on many different issues including the nature of the deanship; the qualities desirable and necessary in the new dean; the nature of the pool of eligible candidates, i.e., internal and external selection criteria as well as other matters such as outreach to minority candidates; the relation of the CAS dean to other senior officers of the College; the future direction of the college; and the selection process.

During the hour-long meeting many different colleagues expressed differing, though often overlapping, opinions on these and other issues.  We hope the session was helpful to President Glassner and we are grateful to him for calling it as he moves to exercise his responsibility under the College’s Constitution and Bylaws to appoint the next dean of the CAS.

Kellar Autumn, Biology

Paulette Bierzychudek, Biology

John Callahan, English

Becko Copenhaver, Philosophy

Janet Davidson, Psychology

Katherine Fitzgibbon, Music

John Krussel, Mathematics

Rob Kugler, Religious Studies/Classics

Nick Smith, Philosophy

Pauls Toutonghi, English