President Brian Rosenberg announced the formation of a search committee to find the next provost of Macalester College last week. The committee, chaired by English Professor Michelle Wright, will recommend a candidate to the president in the Spring, after conducting a national search.

According to Wright, the committee has already received applications in response to advertisements in various academic publications including The Chronicle of Higher Education. Rosenberg said it was important that the college conduct a national search in order to find the best possible candidate for the job.

The advertisement in the Chronicle states that applicants must have an “outstanding record of scholarship and teaching,” administrative experience and a “respect for the role that diversity plays in furthering the goals of a liberal education.” The provost, who also acts as the Dean of Faculty, is responsible for the direction of the college’s academic program.

Rosenberg singled out classroom time and a strong academic record as the top priority in the search. “The most important criteria is a demonstrated record as a teacher and a scholar,” he said.

Wright added that the search committee is making a concerted effort to encourage minorities and women to apply for the position.

Current Provost Dan Hornbach, who was appointed to the position by President Mike McPherson in 1999, will step down at the end of the Fall semester and return to his job as a professor in the Biology Department. Rosenberg hopes to have the position filled by June 1.

Hornbach announced last Fall that he would step down after fulfilling the second year of a three-year term as provost to allow President Rosenberg to establish new leadership.

Over the next few months, committee members will pour over dozens of applications from around the country, including internal ones from Macalester. According to Wright, each application will be read by every member of the committee, after which the group will narrow down the field to approximately three finalists.

There are no students on the search committee because the position is tenure track, and students are generally not involved with tenure-track hiring decisions. However, Rosenberg and Wright said the committee values student input, and they plan to have finalists meet with a group of five or six students when they visit campus in the spring.

Dean of Students Laurie Hamre is assembling that group of students. She said that her office will consider any student who is interested in being part of the decision making process. Hamre said that interested students should email her over the next couple of weeks, but did not specify a particular deadline.

Wright said that committee members are excited to start the search. “Normally committee work is viewed as a necessary evil,” Wright said. “This is a committee where we’re all really charged up.”

The twelve members of the search committee were selected by the president from a pool of nominees submitted by Educational Planning and Governance Committee Chair David Lanegran. In addition to Lanegran and Wright, the committee includes Mathematics Professor David Brassoud, Biology Professor Mary Montgomery, Mathematics Professor Tom Halverson, Art Professor Ruthann Godollei, Economics Professor Vasant Sukhatme, Theater and Dance Professor Beth Cleary, Psychology Professor Kendrick Brown, Philosophy Professor Martin Gunderson, and Library Director Terri Fischel.