Marquette is still searching for new College of Business Administration and College of Engineering deans.

Two committees, made up of  Marquette students, faculty and staff, are working to fill the vacant dean positions. The university has been filling several vacant administrative spots over the past year, including president and men’s and women’s head basketball coaches. In addition, the provost search was recently narrowed down to four candidates.

College of Business

Michael Akers, who co-chairs the business dean search committee with Joseph Daniels, said the group had several meetings with a search firm, resulting in a preliminary list of candidates.

“The next step is that we will identify candidates that we want to see for the airport interviews and then we will make a list of who we want to bring to campus for another set of interviews,” Akers said. “Then the committee will make a recommendation and Dr. Lovell, working with the new provost, will make the ultimate decision.”

Alexandra Dossey, a senior in the College of Business Administration and the only student on the committee, said the committee utilizes applications, references, sourcing and cover letters to find what she calls the “perfect candidates” to invite to Marquette and interview.

“We want our dean to have strong values consistent with the Marquette mission,” Akers said. “The new dean will need to be externally focused and will need to be actively engaged with the business community, including fundraising. He or she also needs to be innovative to see if there are new programs to look at as a college or if there are different things we can do to be innovative with the delivery of our college.”

Dossey echoed these sentiments, adding that the dean should “be successful in all areas of leadership” and “give the business school an excellent reputation in the Milwaukee area.”

Akers and Dossey said they expect to have the new dean selected by March or April and that the dean is slated to begin work July 1.

College of Engineering 

Daniel Zitomer, chair of the engineering dean search committee, said their committee is collecting applications from now until the position is filled, but they will begin reading them at the end of February.

 The committee put together a job profile saying the new dean must have an appreciation for the vision of Jesuit higher education, excellent listening, decision-making and consensus-building skills, an ability to articulate and communicate compellingly, an ongoing ability to work well with diverse groups and individuals, fundraising ability and commitment to academic priorities.

In addition, the candidate must incorporate new information, higher education trends and developments and ongoing learning into effectively leading the college.

The selected candidate will be able to implement his or her vision for engineering education, research and cooperation with industry at the college, in addition to being a local civil leader in the national and international community.

Zitomer said he expects the engineering college to have a dean in place by Aug. 15, 2015.

“The search is going very well and we are right on schedule,” Zitomer said. “I feel very positive that we will have an excellent dean in place by the beginning of the next academic year.”