Interviews call provost to U. Texas

Provost Stanley Chodorow heads to Austin Thursday to interview for the presidential post at the school. As one of the top five contenders for the presidency of the University of Texas at Austin, Provost Stanley Chodorow will travel to the school Thursday for an intense two-day round of open interviews with the campus community. Chodorow resigned from his post at Penn October 31 -- just as he was named as a finalist for the vacant presidential seat at UT-Austin. He will formally step down as provost at the end of December, whether or not he receives the job as president. This UT-Austin visit will mark Chodorow's third trip to the campus. He will meet with student groups, faculty, staff and deans. He will also spend considerable time with the nine members of the university's Board of Regents. The Board is due to select a president by mid-December, according to Regent and search committee chairperson Lowell Lebermann. "All the constituencies on the campus will have a chance to visit with him and he with them," Lebermann said. "These are pretty standard kinds of campus visits." Chodorow will return to the UT-Austin campus the first week of December for a final round of interviews with the Board of Regents. Although various campus groups will make recommendations about the candidates to the Board of Regents, the Board has the final say in the decision, Lebermann said. This stage of the search is being conducted publicly because Texas law requires that the finalists' names be released at least 21 days before the final decision. Two finalists have already completed their open round of campus interviews. Shirley Strum Kenny, president of the State University of New York at Stony Brook and Richard Sisson, Ohio State University's vice president and provost, participated in the interviews last week. University of Wisconsin at Madison Provost John Wiley will be at UT-Austin today and tomorrow and Larry Faulkner, provost at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, will travel to Austin November 23-25. While visiting UT-Austin, Kenny spoke extensively about increasing the campus' diversity. "There is no way that a university can be a great university if students leave not feeling comfortable within a diverse environment," she told students, according to UT-Austin's Daily Texan. Four of the five finalists for the presidency are university provosts. Such a ratio is not unusual because many provosts aspire to be university presidents, according to UT-Austin Chemistry Professor Allen Bard, who serves on the 17-member search committee that chose the five finalists. "There's no guarantee that a good provost will be a good president, but chances are that's the best person to look for," Bard said. In previous bids for top university posts in the past year, Chodorow was passed over for positions at the University of Michigan, the University of California at Los Angeles and the University of Arizona. His inability to secure a position "hasn't helped or hurt his chances at Texas," Bard said. "He is experienced in university administration and he impressed the committee with his knowledge and personality," Bard said. "His proven track record in administration is important to us." UT-Austin English Department Chairperson Tom Staley, who also served on the search committee, said the committee was impressed with Chodorow's depth of experience in higher education. "He obviously has a very perceptive view of the state of higher education today," Staley said. "The committee felt he recognized the dominant issues in higher education, and had exhibited leadership qualities." Because the search committee did not rank their preferences when they identified the top five finalists -- out of a list of more than 100 -- it is impossible to identify a front-runner in the search, Staley said. Chodorow was unavailable for comment yesterday. Previously, he said he would accept the presidency if offered the position.

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