Candidates come to campus

Arizona Summer Wildcat Peter Likins (left), Carol Cartwright, and Stanley Chodorow (right)

Six months after University of Arizona President Manuel Pacheco announced his resignation, the search committee charged with recommending his successor has announced the finalists for the position.

At the end of May the committee had 104 applicants: 89 were male, 15 female and 14 were minorities. Today the committee has three finalists: two are male and one is female. None is a minority.

Peter Likens, Carol Cartwright and Stanley Chodorow were on campus this week meeting with university and community groups and formally interviewing with the 22-member search committee, which is composed of five Arizona Board of Regents members, including the student regent, two additional students, nine UA faculty and staff members and six members of the community at large.

Earlier this week members of the search committee said the qualifications of these three candidates are excellent and that is why they are here.

"The candidates are phenomenal. They all exhibit leadership, have excellent reputations and have done well at their current jobs," said committee member and UA geology professor Joaquin Ruiz.

Jennifer Aviles, committee member and administrative associate in human resources at the UA, said a deciding factor in her decision was the balance all three candidates emphasize between undergraduate education and research.

Following the interviews, the committee will make its recommendations to the Arizona Board of Regents who will chose the new president.

In February, when the committee began its search, members hoped to have the position filled by the start of June or before Pacheco departed to take over leadership of the University of Missouri system on Aug. 1.

However, the process ran into unexpected delays and Pacheco likely will be in his new position before the president takes office.

John Munger, chairman of the search committee and board of regents member, said the new president should be chosen sometime next week. But a date for the new president to take over at the UA has not been set.

If the new president cannot be on campus by August 25, the start of the fall semester, an interim president will be chosen by the regents.

Peter Likins, a finalist to replace UA president Manuel Pacheco, was on campus Monday meeting with the university community and the presidential search committee in the final phase of the selection process.

Likins is currently president of Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, which has a student population of 6,300.

Speaking to about 35 students Monday, Likins said he has close relationships with the students at Lehigh and would try to foster that type of relationship at the University of Arizona.

However, because the UA's student population is closer to 35,000, he said the contact will have to come through the elected student leaders.

Asked about the dramatic jump in enrollment from Lehigh to the UA, Likins said: "The best way to prepare to be president of a big place is to be president of a small place."

Later in the day Likins told about 75 faculty members that if university presidents lose touch with their students, they will lose their bearings.

Likins also emphasized the need for the university to cultivate strong ties with the community through volunteer and mentor programs as well as cooperation with the private sector to advance research.

Research was an issue raised several times during the day by the various campus groups.

Above all, Likins said research and teaching must blend together.

"In so far as research involves students, that's not so far from teaching," he said.

He also said research is vital to the faculty to keep them at the cutting edge of their fields.

Likins focused heavily on the need for learning and knowledge - whether that of a student, professor or community member benefiting from university outreach activities.

A life-long commitment to learning and public service, Likins said, led him to accept the nomination for the UA presidency.

In addition, he said he liked the cultural diversity of Southern Arizona and wanted a new set of challenges.

If chosen as the UA's next president, Likins said his top three priorities would be strengthening a sense of community on and off campus, developing better strategies for communication with students, faculty, the legislature and the public, and learning h is new role at the university.

Prior to his tenure at Lehigh, which began in 1982, Likins spent six years at Columbia University in New York - first as a professor, then dean of the engineering and applied science school and finally as provost of the university.

Unlike many in academia, Likins did not begin his professional career in a university setting. Rather he was a development engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, involved in some of the earliest spacecraft design.

Likins earned his bachelor's degree in civil engineering at Stanford University and his master's at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He returned to Stanford to earn his doctoral degree in engineering mechanics.

Likins and his wife, Patricia, have been married 40 years and raised an inter-racial family, including six adopted children.

Carol Cartwright became the first female president at any Ohio university or college when she took over as president of Kent State University in 1991.

If chosen by the Arizona Board of Regents as the UA's next president, she will be the first female president at this university as well.

But firsts are nothing new to her.

"I have been the first a dozen times in my career," she said, including becoming the first female dean at Pennsylvania State University.

In her six years at Kent State, Cartwright has made student success a top priority.

One less-traditional method she employs is a program she called Coffee Talk where she meets with the undergraduate senate and any interested student over coffee to stay in touch with their concerns.

Another path Cartwright took toward student success was developing community partnerships with business to offer real-world work experience to Kent students. She also emphasized the need for private contributions in education - in part by launching a sch olarship fund with a donation out of her own pocket.

Cartwright oversees a $300 million budget and about 30,000 students in an eight-campus network at Kent State, which is one of 37 institutions recognized by the Carnegie Foundation as a Research II University - a designation one level below the University of Arizona's Research I status.

When asked yesterday about the competing demands of teaching and research, Cartwright said the university would be remiss in devoting itself entirely to research or teaching.

"You have to have balance."

Another student asked her views on the challenges of creating diversity and maintaining quality.

"I don't put the two at odds. The two should go hand in hand," she said.

Cartwright earned her bachelor's degree in early childhood education at the University of Wisconsin at Whitewater and her master's and doctoral degrees in special education/educational research from the University of Pittsburgh.

She and her husband, G. Phillip, have three children.

The final presidential candidate, Stanley Chodorow, is on campus today interviewing with the search committee and meeting the campus community.

This is the second time Chodorow has been in this position. He was also a finalist in 1991 to replace UA President Henry Koffler, but Chodorow said in a phone interview yesterday he withdrew his name because "the timing wasn't right."

Six years later, he and his wife, Peggy, are ready to make the move to the University of Arizona.

Chodorow said he is drawn to the UA partly because of the "phenominally rich intellectual community at a research university."

He also said as the state grows, the need for high-quality education cannot be underestimated, and he would like to be involved in keeping the UA an educational leader.

"I enjoy students and would hope as president I could continue to teach," Chodorow said.

He said being accessible to students has always been a priority for him and he would continue to find ways to keep communication with students open.

He said he and his wife even spent a couple of days living in a residence hall to better understand student needs.

At Penn, Chodorow oversees about 22,500 students as the school's chief academic officer where one of his priorities has been to develop a program to improve undergraduate education.

The main elements of his program focus on the need for leaders to have a broad education, making joint programs especially effective.

For example, combining management studies and engineering.

Research, Chodorow said, is also a key element of a complete education and is often the reason students attend a research-intensive university like the UA.

He said he would like to see undergraduates have the opportunity to take full advantage of the learning opportunities provided by participating in research.

Before taking over as provost at Penn in 1994, Chodorow developed his academic career at the University of California, San Diego where he began as an associate professor and left after serving as the dean of arts and humanities and associate vice chancell or for academic planning.

Chodorow is a medieval historian, specializing in the history of canon law, political thought and the politics of the 11th and 12th centuries.

He received his bachelor's degree in government and doctoral degree in history from Cornell University in New York. He also studied law at the University of California, Berkeley.

Chodorow and his wife have two grown sons.

If you're looking for links related to this story, check out our presidental nominees page.

Jason A. Vrtis contributed to this report