Although the Nursing School is still without permanent leadership, the long journey toward finding a permanent dean finally seems to be nearing an end.
The search committee, which continued its work during the early part of the summer, presented a short list of four candidates to University President Judith Rodin and Provost Robert Barchi, according to search committee chairwoman Susan Fuhrman.
Barchi said that the committee is now evaluating the various candidates in hopes of settling on a final choice.
"We then began a process of interviewing all those candidates, talking with them personally, and have moved beyond that point now to our discussions to what we hope will bring the process to a conclusion," Barchi said.
One of the final choices is an internal candidate from Penn, Barchi said.
The search committee has been working since last June, when then-Nursing Dean Norma Lang effectively resigned from her post. Interim Dean Neville Strumpf, professor of Gerontology and director of the Gerontology Nurse Practitioner Program, has assumed the leadership role on an interim basis since August 2000.
Though the search extended past the initial deadlines, Fuhrman said that the process still "moved fairly expeditiously."
Nursing "is a great school," said Fuhrman, the dean of the Graduate School of Education. "I learned a lot about it. We have excellent candidates and I am excited to hear about what will happen."
Nursing is also conducting a search to find a permanent replacement for Linda Brown, associate dean and director of undergraduate studies, who resigned earlier this summer. Nursing professor Kathleen McCauley has temporarily stepped into the position until a permanent replacement can be found.
According to a statement sent by the school to the State Board of Nursing, which accredits the undergraduate Nursing program, a "consultative committee is currently working to fill this position [vacated by Brown] by conducting an internal search, which is the standard process in a university."
