Intermim dean a hard position to fill, as Wharton's Harker knows

But Harker's knowledge of how Wharton works will help in his temporary role. Patrick Harker was not an altogether surprising choice to assume the interim deanship of the Wharton School. He is, after all, the school's deputy dean and is already well acquainted with the ins and outs of Steinberg-Dietrich Hall and the rest of the top-rated business school. Still, taking the helm has brought with it a new challenge for Harker: finding time to balance work and family while maintaining high standards under temporary leadership. "This is a good place -- it's been quite good to me -- so I think every once in a while people have to step up and give back," said Harker, 41, who lives with his wife and three children in Haddon Heights, N.J. Harker -- who earned his doctorate from Penn's School of Engineering and Applied Science in 1983 -- arrived at Penn in 1984 after spending a year teaching at the University of California at Santa Barbara. And now, 15 years later, he finds himself with a host of responsibilities after taking Wharton's reins early last month. In addition to serving as both deputy and interim dean, Harker is a member of the search committee charged with finding a permanent replacement for former Wharton Dean Thomas Gerrity. And just as Interim Law School Dean Charles Mooney must follow his predecessor Colin Diver, a Penn veteran and admired administrator, so too must Harker temporarily replace a leader respected by his peers for his exceptional organizational and fundraising skills. Harker insisted that his familiarity with Wharton's agenda should help prevent the school from losing ground under temporary leadership. "We can't afford to stay still," Harker said. "We have to compete in the world of faculty, in the world of students, to stay at the top, and nobody at Penn wants Penn to be anyplace other than the top." In order to keep pace in what Harker called an "extremely competitive" world of business schools, Wharton administrators plan to launch new programs centered around electronic commerce, increase its work in technology and distance-learning opportunities and provide a more interdisciplinary education by connecting the business school with more engineering and science-oriented programs. Harker had previously served as the chairperson of the Operations and Information Management Department, but stepped down in order to assume the position of interim dean. New OPIM Department Chairperson Howard Kunreuther said he felt Harker had the necessary commitment and ability to be an effective interim head. "He has a deep knowledge of Wharton as a faculty member and chairperson and wants to keep the school at the forefront of business schools in the U.S.," Kunreuther said. Gerrity announced in October of last year that he would step down from his position July 1, but no successor had been named by that date. University President Judith Rodin appointed Harker and Mooney to serve as interim deans of the Wharton and Law schools, respectively, in August. Harker said he is prepared to stay on as interim dean until the conclusion of the search. Since Harker is a member of the search committee, he is not being considered as a possible candidate. Though he declined to offer a timetable as to when a new dean might be named, he did say -- as University officials have said since the beginning of the search -- that the committee's top priority is to ensure that the best candidate possible accepts the position. "Our expectations are very high for the next dean and we're not going to settle for anything other than the very best," Harker said. "We have got lots of people interested. We just want to find the right person."