In her first step toward replacing Vice President for Student Affairs Janet Dickerson, President Nan Keohane announced Monday that University Secretary and Vice President Allison Haltom and Associate Professor of Zoology Steve Nowicki will lead the search committee.
The remaining committee members will not be appointed until Keohane returns from Asia next month, and officials say the search is not likely to begin in earnest until the fall.
The search comes at a critical time for student affairs, which has been steeped in talks about the alcohol policy and campus drinking since the February acknowledgment that a student's November death was related to drinking.
The committee chair appointments come two months after Dickerson's announcement that she would leave this summer for Princeton University.
John Burness, senior vice president for public relations and government relations, said this time frame is standard.
"The announcement came so close to the end of the school year that it became difficult to start the search before [the summer]," he said.
The committee will aim to have a list of finalists by spring 2000, and the University could fill the position by next summer, said Nowicki, who will serve as vice-chair.
"We're looking for someone who is going to be able to both show strong leadership on key issues and also bring in a lot of constituencies... and be able to talk to people across the University on all levels," Nowicki said.
Haltom, who was named committee chair, could not be reached for comment, as she is out of town this week.
Although Nowicki said he could not speak on behalf of the as-yet-unformed committee, he thinks the next vice president should be able to cater to the interests of many groups, including members of the faculty. "You might say we really don't want to get just an amateur who doesn't have any experience in student affairs," he said.
"On the other hand," Nowicki added, "you can become too professionalized [and] get disconnected from some of the constituencies in the University. I think it's very likely the top candidates will be people who have some credentials in student affairs but I certainly would not say that that's going to be a litmus test."
And as the division of student affairs has become increasingly distinct from other departments in the University, Nowicki said he hopes other faculty will take an active role in the process.
"[Keohane] correctly thinks the faculty really have to get on board with this," said Nowicki. "It's essential.... One of the things we want to improve upon at Duke is the disconnection between student affairs and student life and academic affairs and academic life."
Since Dickerson's April announcement that she would head to Princeton in July, many students and administrators have speculated that several internal candidates-including Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs Sue Wasiolek and Dean of Student Development Barbara Baker-will probably apply for the vacant job.
Nowicki said internal applicants will be scrutinized in the same way as external ones, and that the next vice president should come from a school similar to Duke.
Duke Student Government President Jordan Bazinsky and former Graduate and Professional Student Council President Tomalei Vess submitted lists of potential committee members. The student leaders, however, will not play a role in actually selecting the individual members.
GPSC Attorney General Carol Chancey, a third-year graduate student in biomedical engineering who was on GPSC's list, said she has not heard anything about the search committee.
She was interested in the position because she thinks replacing Dickerson with an equally capable successor will be a difficult task.
"I think maybe we need someone who's a strong individual, ready to look at the challenges," Chancey said. "We need somebody ready to go forward... [who's] definitely ready to address and not just waver back and forth."
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.