While the search for a new dean remains on hold, the College of Business Administration hired six new professors over break to fill vacancies left after a number of faculty retirements.

The interim dean of the college, Mark Eppli, said four of the professors hired were first choice candidates. Three positions were filled in the marketing department, one in finance, one in information technology and the last was hired as a management faculty member.

Eppli said the college is still interviewing candidates for the management and economics department, and finalists for both candidates were invited for campus visits.

“In short, we are well on our way to finding new talent for the college,” Eppli said in an email.

The progress toward finding a new dean, however, is hindered by other university leadership changes in the past year, notably the president and provost vacancies.

“The (business dean) search is on hold until the president search is completed,” Joseph Daniels, an economics professor and co-chair of the search committee for the business dean, said in an email. “Hence, there is nothing to report at all. In fact, the committee has not met since the (former University President the Rev. Scott) Pilarz announcement.”

Daniels told the Tribune in October the lack of a president, provost, dean and faculty created a “domino effect” that causes “uncertainty all the way down.”

Eppli said even though his role is interim, he is still focused on the long term.

“MU, like all not-for-profit universities, (makes) decisions for the very long run, as we expect to be around this century, the next century and the century after that, and the process to vet significant decisions reflects that long-term view,” Eppli said.

Eppli is considered as a candidate for the permanent position as dean of the college, but said he and the college are not prepared to make a decision.

“Once the university is ready to begin its search for a permanent business dean, I will give serious consideration to whether I wish to be a candidate,” Eppli said.

The original goal when the university announced the search committee Aug. 26, less than a month before Pilarz left the university, was to have the dean position filled by early spring 2014.

Eppli still emphasized the progress the college is making, even in the absence of a permanent business dean. He cited the 17 percent increase in the college’s enrollment from last year, the implementation of the university’s first massively open online course in investing, as well as the new vision and “strategic roadmap” for the college.