With the planned retirement of one dean and the continued vacancy of another position, search committees have begun the process of finding new deans for the College of Engineering and the College of Arts & Sciences.

Current Engineering Dean Stan Jaskolski announced at the beginning of this year that he would retire on June 30, 2010, or when a successor is found, whichever comes later.

And the College of Arts & Sciences has been without a dean since December 2007. A search committee established last year was eventually halted in March after the committee had trouble finding and retaining candidates.

Jeanne Hossenlopp has remained the interim dean since last year.

College of Engineering

The engineering dean search began in late October, said search committee chair Kyle Kim, who is also chair of the mechanical engineering department. The committee will begin screening applicants in December.

The college has received about a dozen nominations so far, he said. These nominations will be sent to a consulting firm assisting in the search. The firm will then invite the nominees to apply for the position.

Kim said the most important quality for a new dean to possess is cura personalis, meaning he or she needs to care about Marquette students, faculty and the university as a whole. He said even a candidate with extensive published research would not be a good fit for the job without a commitment to this ideal.

An incoming dean would benefit from the extensive groundwork Jaskolski has laid for current engineering projects, such as the construction of the Discovery Learning Complex, he said. But Jaskolski’s legacy also means a new dean has big shoes to fill.

“I have served five or six deans, and he’s the best, no doubt.” said Kim, who has taught at other universities.

College of Arts & Sciences

Richard Friman, a professor of political science, is chairing the dean search committee for the College of Arts & Sciences.

The university has placed an online advertisement on the Chronicle of Higher Education Web site and is encouraging Marquette faculty members to submit nominations, he said.

At one point in last year’s search, the university’s list of candidates included Tim Machan, a professor of English at Marquette, Brian Blake, an associate professor and chair of the computer science department and director of graduate studies at Georgetown University, and Marietta Morrissey, a professor of sociology at the University of Toledo.

Blake and Morrissey later withdrew their names, and two names were added: Diane Michelfelder, provost and dean of the faculty at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn., and Robert Lueger, dean of Arts & Sciences at Creighton University.

Eventually, Provost John Pauly and the search committee decided to stop the search and begin anew this school year at a time when more people would be looking at the position.

“We were working with a more constrained pool of candidates and the uncertainty of people to enter the search,” Pauly said in a March 19 Marquette Tribune article.

Current search committee members are hopeful they will be successful this time around, Friman said.