The university looks to narrow down the candidates for the position of dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
The position had been held by Sharron Quisenberry since 2003 and was left vacant in her move to Iowa State University. Quisenberry began her role as the Vice President for Research and Economic Development at Iowa on April 1.Virginia Tech's application process closed on April 10.
"We will start looking at files next week, and then we will narrow it down. Within a few weeks, we've had a lot of different potential candidates from several different avenues," said Provost Mark McNamee. "We sent out information through the Chronicle of Higher Education, listservs and through letters that go out to other research universities similar to ours."
McNamee, as chair of the search committee, hopes to get the position filled sooner rather than later.
"I tend to move it along pretty quickly. The fastest we've ever done is two months. That would be pretty usual, to get ads out, get applications and do interviews," McNamee said. "We're hoping that by commencement the person will be identified. When they start is somewhat flexible; it could be as early as July or August 1."
Most applications have been coming from major land grant research institutions just like Tech, such as N.C. State, Florida, Michigan and Penn State.
"Those are the kinds of schools we try to recruit from. Hopefully we find someone with good experience, and they may be even from smaller universities," McNamee said. "Quisenberry came to us from Montana State as a dean. That was a smaller land grant school, but most of our finalists will probably be either a department head or associate."
Kerstin Roan, spokeswoman for the college, says that as far as criteria for a new dean, CALS is looking for someone who can be as dedicated to the job as Quisenberry always was.
"All the information on the Web site as far as the deans of college ... the selection depends on the personal schedule of the person, as far as if they can be selected as a finalist," Roan said.
McNamee reflected a similar sentiment.
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