One year after Provost Dan Fogel announced he would leave the University, five candidates will visit LSU looking to fill the job.
Beginning Feb. 3, Chancellor Mark Emmert said candidates will visit the campus for two days of interviews and public forums where they can meet students, faculty and staff outside the search committee.
The candidates also will meet with deans, department heads and student leaders, such as Student Government and the graduate school council, Emmert said.
The candidates include Nancy Barrett, University of Alabama’s provost and vice president for academic affairs; Steven Hoch, University of Iowa’s associate provost and dean of international programs; Jasper Neel, Southern Methodist University’s dean of the College of Humanities and Sciences; Risa Palm, dean of University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s College of Arts and Sciences; and Harold Silverman, LSU’s dean of the College of Basic Sciences.
“They’re all coming from great universities,” Emmert said. “They all have strong academic backgrounds.”
Although Silverman is coming from within the University, Emmert said he did not receive any special treatment from the search committee.
Mass communication graduate student Sonora Nambiar, a student representative on the search committee, said the committee represented the campus’ diverse interests and thoroughly interviewed the candidates.
“Still, I think it is equally important for the larger campus community to make an effort to attend the interviews with the candidates that will be open to different groups, so that they can get a sense of the candidate,” she said.
Last spring the search committee planned to bring a group of candidates to campus but disagreed on the candidates. The University hired mass communication professor Laura Lindsey as interim provost, and the committee continued searching.
Mass communication senior Patrick McCune, another student representative on the committee, said the committee wanted everyone they brought to campus to be “amazing.”
It is important students are interested in the candidates because the provost deals with day-to-day affairs of the University, McCune said.
For example, Fogel was involved in issues from Dead Week to recycling to when the University closes for Mardi Gras, McCune said.
Beyond the formal requirements, Emmert said he is looking for a leader who does not want to maintain the status quo but wants to keep moving forward.
Karl Roider, search committee chair, said the committee looks at the candidates’ management style and their sensitivity in dealing with LSU’s diverse employees and students.
“The provost is an important position at any university,” Emmert said. “That person has a very large impact in shaping the culture of campus with faculty and students.”
If the University hires someone from this pool of candidates, the person likely would finish his or her current job and start at LSU in the fall, Emmert said.
But if the University does not hire any of the candidates, the search committee will start over, he said.