3 schools still await new deans

The Law and Wharton schools recently joined Engineering in appointing interim deans. Marking the first public announcement of two intensely private endeavors, the University named interim deans for both the Wharton and Law schools early last month, a move that gives both schools at least temporary leadership. Wharton Deputy Dean Patrick Harker will serve as Wharton's interim dean, and Charles Mooney, the Law School's associate dean for academic affairs, will temporarily head the Law School. Harker, who is stepping down from his position as chairperson of the Operations and Information Management Department, said he would not allow Wharton's academic and fundraising initiatives to remain stagnant under temporary leadership. "The one thing I'm committed to do is not to go into a holding pattern," Harker said. "The beauty of the Wharton School is that the dean is important, but most of the initiatives come not from the dean, but from the faculty members." Harker said he is prepared to act as interim dean until a permanent one is appointed. He is not, however, a candidate for the permanent position since he serves on the search committee charged with finding his replacement. Mooney, who has taught at Penn since 1986 and has served on the University Faculty Senate Executive Committee, was out of the country this week and unavailable for comment. The appointment of interim deans means that both schools will begin the academic year without permanent replacements for their respective outgoing leaders, despite searches that have each now lasted approximately nine months. Many have quietly criticized both schools for a search process that has extended beyond the time former Law Dean Colin Diver and former Wharton Dean Thomas Gerrity both left office this summer. Though University officials have insisted that none of the outstanding searches are pegged to any schedule, both Diver and Gerrity said last October that they hoped new deans would be appointed by the time their resignations took effect. While there has been talk that the decision to appoint interim deans is a sign of a stalled search process, Provost Robert Barchi said it is beneficial to have knowledgeable people taking the reins for the time being. And according to officials at other top law schools -- some of whom identify with Penn's difficulty in ending these two high-profile searches -- nine months is not abnormally long for a search. Georgetown Law School Associate Dean Peter Byrne, who sat on the search committee that appointed current Law Dean Judith Areen in 1989, said his search lasted for six months before settling on Areen, who taught at the school at the time of her appointment. And at Columbia University Law School, where a new dean was named by the university's president in June 1996, there was a similar 9-month period between the resignation of the former dean, Lance Leidman, and the appointment of the current one, David Leebron. An approximately 7-member search committee there, charged by the president and headed by a Law School professor, ultimately selected an internal candidate, according to John Kelly, the director of public relations at the Columbia Law School. "[In general] it doesn't seem to be a very quick process," Kelly said. In addition to the vacancies at Law and Wharton, the School of Engineering and Applied Science has been without a permanent dean for over a year now, since the departure of Gregory Farrington for Lehigh University's presidency. Eduardo Glandt has been serving as interim dean since last summer. Gerrity and Diver both announced in early October 1998 that they would step down from their posts on July 1. Months later, as the deadline for their resignations neared, Diver said he would remain as dean through the summer but would still step down before the start of the school year. Two search committees charged with finding replacements for both Gerrity and Diver have been meeting since January to screen internal and external candidates. Both were unavailable for comment this week. Graduate School of Fine Arts Dean Gary Hack, who chairs the 12-member Wharton dean search committee, said his committee is still in the process of interviewing a "small number of candidates." The list of candidates, which Hack said has been pared down during the summer, includes academics, businesspeople and "public figures." The actual person selected, said Hack, could include any of the above. "What we've said from the beginning is that we're looking for someone who can be an extraordinary leader," Hack noted, adding that, "We're looking for people who have different shades and blends of both [business and academic] abilities." Though Hack refused to comment on exactly how many candidates are currently being considered, members of the search committee had reported in late April that they were working on reducing a list of six candidates to three or four that could be presented for final consideration to University President Judith Rodin and Provost Robert Barchi. Hack acknowledged that the search has taken longer than he would have liked. He suggested that the committee may have been "overly ambitious" in thinking that the search could be concluded quickly. He did, however, say he hoped to end the search process and present a final list of candidates this fall. In addition, Law School dean search committee chairperson Richard Herring, who is also Wharton's undergraduate dean, said his committee hopes to conclude the search "as soon as possible." "My fervent hope is that [the search] will not take into October," Herring said, though he noted that certain "variables" -- applicants' chemistry with the University and other personal issues, for instance -- make it difficult to predict an official timetable for the search. Herring said the committee, comprised of four faculty members, four Law School professors, two Law School students and one alumnus, met with Rodin and Barchi once this summer to give a progress update, but did not discuss any specific candidates. Herring refused to name any of the candidates and would not say how many people are being considered for the job. He also declined to comment on whether Mooney was a candidate for the Law School position. In late May, Mooney said the committee had interviewed more than 100 candidates since February.

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