Eduardo Glandt will chair the 14-person consultative committee that is charged with replacing Wharton Dean Patrick Harker, University President Amy Gutmann announced in a press statement yesterday.
Glandt, dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, will serve with seven other professors, two Wharton students and two Wharton alumni.
The committee will be responsible for submitting a list of between three and five candidates to Gutmann and University Provost Ronald Daniels.
Representatives from the President's Office and Heidrick & Struggles - a Chicago-based executive search firm that specializes in finding top-notch leaders - will additionally partake in the search committee.
Glandt, currently out of the country, was unavailable for comment.
A spokesperson for Gutmann did not know how long the committee will take to replace Harker, who announced in December that he will leave Penn in July to assume the presidency at the University of Delaware.
The search committee will likely meet within the next couple of weeks, Gutmann's spokesperson said.
Its first task will entail putting together a job description that will include the necessary qualities for Harker's successor, Gutmann said in an interview.
Kenneth Kring, a partner in Heidrick & Struggles, will assist the committee in narrowing down the "universe of potential candidates" and help it determine who is available for the position, Gutmann said.
The search for Harker's successor will be a comprehensive one, examining potential candidates from within and outside the University.
Once the committee whittles its list of prospective deans down to a narrow range, Gutmann and Daniels will interview the candidates. The two will then choose one person and present him or her to the University Board of Trustees, which approves all high-level University appointments.
Other professors on the committee - the majority of whom currently teach in Wharton - include David Asch, Michael Gibbons, John Hershey, Daniel Levinthal, Olivia Mitchell and G. Richard Shell.
These Wharton professors were unavailable for immediate comment after the release of the press statement.
Political Science and Communication professor Diana Mutz, the only non-Wharton professor on the committee, said she would not comment on the issue because the committee has not yet met.
As the first meeting date approaches, the students involved in the selection process are eager to get started.
"There's an intense curiosity [among students] as to whom the next dean will be," Wharton junior Richard Hillen, a member of the search committee, said.
Hillen added that he intends to represent the interests of the Wharton undergraduate community to the other committee members.
First-year MBA student Jay Dearborn, who is also on the committee, echoed these sentiments.
"Everyone is very cognizant of Dean Harker moving on," Dearborn said.
Staff writer Heather Schwedel contributed reporting to this article.
