College of Education position to be selected with diversity in mind

Three finalists vying to be College of Education dean are visiting campus this month, marking the final stage of a search for the highest-ranking campus position to be filled under new guidelines for hiring diverse faculty.

Provost George Davis expects to decide which candidate to hire in early May and hopes the person will begin work by July 1.

The first finalist, Ronald Marx, an education professor at the University of Michigan, is visiting campus all week. Steven Bossert, an education professor at Syracuse University, will visit next week, and Kathryn Borman, a professor at the University of South Florida, will visit later this month.

The search committee whittled a pool of 36 applicants down to the three finalists, said Joaquin Ruiz, dean of the College of Science and head of the search committee.

It was the second time in less than two years that the university conducted a search for a permanent replacement to former dean John Taylor. A search last year failed to yield a new dean when negotiations broke down with a potential replacement, Ruiz said.

Since that search, President Pete Likins released the Diversity Action Plan, which outlines ways the university should try to attract a more diverse group of applicants for open jobs.

"We really had not advertised as broadly as we should in journals and publications that would attract the interest of potential candidates from underrepresented groups," Davis said.

Though none of the finalists for the education dean's job come from a minority group, Ruiz said the committee "just jumped through hoops trying to make sure that the pool of candidates is diverse."

The job opening was posted in a variety of trade publications and Web sites directed at minority academics, and the search committee consulted a campus group that works to create a diverse campus, Davis said.

"The challenge of the committee is to make sure that we turn every possible stone to make sure that the original pool of candidates is diverse," Ruiz said.

Of the 36 applicants, 14 were women, five were Hispanic and two were black, Davis said. But he recognizes that he and the search committee will likely face criticism from the campus because none of the finalists are minorities.

In future searches, a diverse pool of applicants will increase the chances that finalists could come from minority groups, he said.

"I feel that we have a committee that has really worked hard. It's so discouraging that the short list does not include any faculty candidates from an underrepresented group," Davis said.

Whoever gets the job will be challenged with leading a college that has faced $1.3 million in budget cuts over the past two years, and a political climate in which many lawmakers question the importance of teacher preparation, said Teresa McCarty, the college's interim dean.

"Those (challenges) have to do with the assault on colleges of education by federal policy makers, the questioning of the value of research 1 · teacher preparation programs," McCarty said.

Likins has emphasized over the last year the importance of teacher preparation even in the face of university budget cuts. He believes universities have a social responsibility to train new teachers, especially as Arizona's population grows.

"The dean of the College of Education has to be responsible to the needs of the community," Ruiz said.

He promised to protect those programs from cuts under his overhaul of the university's mission, and the college is planning to establish a center that will train teachers at all academic levels.

McCarty has just begun searching for external funding throughout the community and said one of the new dean's main challenges will be finding financial support for the college.

"That's a constant effort that a dean will always be involved in," she said.