Turnover prompts interim positions

With the announcement of a new School of Arts and Sciences dean expected as early as next week, one more gap will be filled in the current University administration.

While current SAS Dean Samuel Preston announced plans to step down around six months before his planned departure, administrators do not always have the luxury of advance notice. Interim appointments are common -- and most say necessary -- when administrators vacate their posts quickly, but this can leave holes in the hierarchy of leadership for students.

Though a new executive vice president and vice president for budget and management analysis have been installed, many of the University's searches for important administrative positions -- including provost and vice president for development -- remain unresolved. Until permanent replacements are secured, these roles fall under the jurisdiction of interim officials.

Interim Provost Peter Conn, who served as deputy provost prior to taking on his interim role in July, said that he has "not found any particular impediment" resulting from his interim role.

"No one has -- as far as I can tell -- discounted my participation or my contributions," he said, while noting that "there's no advantage to being in an interim role as opposed to a permanent role."

Complications may arise for interim faculty when issues of long-term planning are considered, according to others who have been temporarily held responsible for a department.

Penn's current vice president for budget and management analysis, Bonnie Gibson, held the title of acting executive director for budget and management until last week, when she was appointed to the permanent position. For the majority of Gibson's interim tenure, which began in January 2003, she was under the impression that her predecessor, Michael Masch, would be returning.

"There were some things I might have liked to have done but ... couldn't do because it was [Masch's] office, after all," she said.

She described herself as the caretaker whose job it was to "return the office very much the way he left it."

Only once she "became increasingly convinced that he wasn't going to come back" did Gibson start taking more initiative in her post.

"I was making decisions I believed I needed to do to go forward, rather than just maintaining what he had been doing in the past," she said of her evolving role.

But Gibson also noted the benefits of having a trial run, comparing the experience to student teaching.

"You've had the opportunity to work with the people, [and] you're much more comfortable stepping into the permanent role."

Conn noted that the consequences of installing an interim administrator really depend on the position.

"I think an interim president is more disruptive to an institution than any other interim job, because the sense of forward momentum and the sense of sustained leadership are by definition interrupted," he said.

Since the position of University president was created in 1930, there has been one interim president. Former Nursing School Dean Claire Fagin assumed the role of president for just one year in 1993, after former University President Sheldon Hackney decided to accept chairmanship of the National Endowment for the Humanities in April of that year.

"It's almost exclusively a matter of timing," Conn said in reference to what prompts the appointment of any interim administrator.

University President Amy Gutmann stressed that sudden vacancies usually require bringing in an interim leader to ensure that the formal search can progress smoothly.

"The reason to have an interim position is so you don't have a gaping hole in a position while you're conducting a search," Gutmann said. She said having an interim provost affords her the time to conduct a thorough national search for a permanent replacement for former Provost Robert Barchi.

But even after scouring the national market for over a year, University officials may still just end up promoting the interim administrator to the permanent position, as was the case with Gibson.

Executive Vice President Craig Carnaroli said that his search committee did not find anyone whose credentials topped Gibson's.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.