VCU search committee hears input on next president
A president who will look out for the arts. And who understands the needs of a research university.
Someone who will build more topranked programs to raise the university's national standing.
He, or she, should be an academic, a visionary and an excellent fundraiser.
The committee trying to find a successor to Eugene P. Trani has heard all that and more as it searches for a new president for Virginia Commonwealth University.
Put all the opinions together and "you'd describe a person who doesn't exist," committee Chairman Edward H. Bersoff told about two dozen people who showed up for the final town-hall meeting Nov. 20.
But the themes the committee has heard have been consistent, said Bersoff, a member of the board of visitors and immediate past rector of the university.
The students, faculty, staff and alumni who have come to the town-hall meetings want to see VCU taken to the next level academically while remaining a university of opportunity.
"We're very proud of that," Bersoff said of VCU's reputation for diversity and access.
With 32,284 students this fall, VCU has seen dramatic growth since Trani became president in 1990.
But many who have spoken at the meetings have expressed a concern that there's "a lot of infrastructure that needs to be fleshed out and filled in."
The search committee has held four open town-hall meetings, including one on VCU's Qatar campus in the Middle East. Meetings also were held with the faculty senate and staff senate to solicit views about what characteristics the new president should have.
The 17-member committee is now "in the process of gathering candidates," Bersoff said. The committee is made up of six members from the board of visitors, five faculty members, two staff members, two students, one alumnus and one VCU Foundation member.
It's working with consultant Stephen Portch and a higher-education search firm, Greenwood/Asher & Associates Inc. of Miramar Beach, Fla.
The committee expects to present two to five finalists to the board of visitors, which will select a new president in the spring. Trani plans to step down as president June 30 because of health reasons, but he will remain at the university as a professor.
Trani is the fourth president of VCU, which this year is celebrating its 40th anniversary. The university's relative youth could be a selling point to potential candidates, Portch told the board of visitors last month.
Bersoff said the committee will keep an open mind as it looks at candidates. The right person might have come up through the traditional ranks of academia, or that person could be a nontraditional candidate.
Either way, Bersoff said, the new president will be "forward-thinking [and] a change agent."
But whoever is selected must have the respect of the faculty, Bersoff added.
"They're the ones that make things happen."
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