Holbrook appoints 17-member search committee for provost

COLUMBUS – President Karen A. Holbrook has appointed a 17-member committee to head the search for a new senior vice president and provost of Academic Affairs. Glen F. Hoffsis, dean and professor of veterinary medicine and executive dean of health sciences, will chair the search committee.

Edward J. Ray, executive vice president and provost, is leaving Ohio State at the end of this month to become the new president of Oregon State University, effective July 31. Barbara R. Snyder, Joanne W. Murphy/Class of 1965 Professor of Law and vice provost for academic policy and human resources in the Office of Academic Affairs, and currently interim vice president for University Relations, will serve as the university’s interim executive vice president and provost, effective July 28. The search process will get under way this summer, and the committee is expected to have a new provost selected by the beginning of 2004.

“The selection of a search committee to conduct a national search is very important to the institution. The members need to be broadly representative of the constituency that reports directly to the provost, understand the academic mission and goals of Ohio State, and will convey to the university community, as well as the outside community, that this is a very serious, important, and entirely open and unbiased search,” Holbrook said. “I have thus identified what I believe is an outstanding group of individuals to represent Ohio State and to recruit, screen, and identify the very best candidates.”

Members of the search committee are:
• Deborah A. Ballam, professor of business;
• Paul A. Beck, chair and professor of political science;
• Joseph Branin, director of The Ohio State University Libraries;
• Bernard L. Erven, professor of agricultural, environmental, and development economics;
• Evelyn B. Freeman, director and professor of teaching and learning;
• William H. Hall, vice president for student affairs;
• Joan M. Herbers, dean of biological sciences;
• Kerry M. Hodak, chair of the Council on Student Affairs;
• Douglas C. Lance Jr., chair of the University Staff Advisory Committee;
• L. James Lee, professor of chemical engineering and director of the NSF Center for Advanced Polymer and Composite Engineering;
• William T. McDaniel Jr., professor of African-American and African studies and music, and director of jazz studies;
• Deborah J. Merritt, director of the John Glenn Institute for Public Service and Public Policy and professor of law;
• Terry A. Miller, Ohio Eminent Scholar and professor of physical chemistry;
• Electra D. Paskett, chair and professor of cancer research in the School of Public Health;
• Stephen S. Pinsky, professor of physics and chair of the University Senate Steering Committee;
• David E. Schuller, director of the James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute; and
• Mac A. Stewart, vice provost for minority affairs.