Officials at the Pratt School of Engineering have announced five finalists to replace former dean Kristina Johnson.
The candidates are Robert Clark, interim dean of Pratt, François Sainfort, senior associate dean for Interdisciplinary Programs in the College of Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology, Frank Doyle, a professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara, Tom Byers, a professor at Stanford University and Tom Katsouleas, a professor at the University of Southern California.
"The selection committee is looking for someone who is going to take their vision and help us build on what Kristina has done," said April Brown, chair of the Pratt dean search committee. "We want someone great for this position."
Much of the debate among the candidates focused around their individual vision for the school, its current ranking among graduate and undergraduate programs and the potential to obtain a higher ranking in the future.
"Right now, [Pratt is] ranked in the top 30 among graduate engineering programs and in the top 25 in undergraduate engineering programs," Clark said. "But we're not going to be in the top 15 in the next decade. That's not going to happen."
He added that the goals for Pratt should not be focused solely on the rankings, which he said include arbitrary categories, but should be to improve the educational and research experience within the school.
"We need to focus on quality," he said. "We're not going to move up in terms of size."
Other candidates, however, had loftier goals for the undergraduate program and the ranking of Pratt.
"My vision for Pratt is that we should be in the top 10 of engineering schools in the country," Sainfort said. "And we don't have to wait until 2020 to achieve this."
In addition, he said Pratt must create a more novel undergraduate program that fosters faculty interaction and is able to impact national policy.
In the next step of the selection process, the selection committee will present the provost with three unranked finalists Feb. 25, from which the dean will be chosen, Brown said.
"Our philosophy is that the selection committee will put forth three candidates who we think will be great deans for the school," she said.
Patrick Baker contributed to this story.
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