Rodin to name new Wharton dean

Interim Dean Patrick Harker is expected to be tapped today for the position. University President Judith Rodin plans to announce Wharton's new dean today, and speculation is swirling throughout the business school that Interim Dean Patrick Harker is the choice. Harker, 41, has been Wharton's temporary head since longtime Dean Thomas Gerrity stepped down in July. Harker has also served as Wharton's deputy dean since last April. According to several top Wharton and University officials, Rodin is expected to report her decision to the entire business school faculty at a noon meeting today. Several faculty members said last night they were anticipating that Harker will be the new head of the elite business school. "There is considerable speculation that Harker will be made dean," one Wharton professor said. Other Wharton faculty and administrators said Harker's name has been floating around department hallways in recent weeks. And a top administration official confirmed last night that Harker had "been a leading candidate." When reached at home last night, Harker declined to comment on the possibility of being named as dean. Jennifer Baldino, Rodin's director of external affairs, referred all questions to University spokesman Ken Wildes, who refused to comment on the pending announcement. Graduate School of Fine Arts Dean Gary Hack, who chaired the Wharton dean search committee, also declined comment about all matters surrounding the decision. The search for a new Wharton dean has dragged on for almost 14 months, with members of the 12-person committee remaining extremely tight-lipped throughout the process. Harker, who was previously a member of the search committee, resigned from the group during the search process. That move made him eligible for the position, as most academic searches do not allow members of the search committee to be considered as candidates. Harker has been a noted scholar and academic leader since he joined the Penn faculty more than 15 years ago. As Wharton interim and deputy dean, Harker has been actively involved in Wharton's fundraising campaigns and academic policy decisions, as well as in shaping its strategic direction with new technology-oriented programs like the E-Commerce major and distance learning initiatives. Harker previously served as chairman of the Operations and Management Department and was once head of the Systems Department of the School of Engineering and Applied Science. Harker has a distinguished background in technological innovation and was named a White House Fellow by President George Bush in 1991 for his outstanding contributions as a scholar of the service sector. He also has strong ties to the University. An alumnus of Penn's undergraduate, graduate and doctoral Engineering programs, Harker has been a Penn faculty member since 1984. He previously taught at the University of California at Santa Barbara. Since Gerrity announced his resignation in October 1998, the Wharton dean search has progressed far slower than committee members originally anticipated. Hack said last spring that the committee hoped to submit a final list of candidates to Rodin and Provost Robert Barchi last May so that the school would have a permanent leader in place when Gerrity officially stepped down on July 1. But the timetable changed as the search continued. It was not until last October that Hack finally turned in the committee's recommendations. And by late January, Hack said he was still unaware if Rodin and Barchi had made their decision. Throughout the process, Hack maintained that the committee was conducting an exhaustive search of the nation's top business and academic leaders, although few names ever surfaced. Last September, Harker said he was not being considered as a possible candidate and claimed he was ineligible as a member of the search committee. Hack also noted early last fall that the committee had lost a number of otherwise qualified candidates who were unwilling to leave their jobs to come to Penn. If Harker is named today as expected, it would mark the fourth straight academic leadership position to go to an internal candidate, following Engineering Dean Eduardo Glandt, Barchi and School of Arts and Sciences Dean Samuel Preston. Although today's announcement will give the Wharton School permanent leadership, the Law School remains without a dean after a similar 14-month search. Officials have said they anticipate that the post will likely be filled before the University Trustees meetings next week, but according to one Penn official familiar with the situation, there is no set date for a Law dean announcement. A short list of candidates for the Law School deanship was submitted to Rodin and Barchi during the fall semester.