WFU Board of Trustees approves presidential search committee
The Wake Forest University Board of Trustees approved a search committee May 26 to lead the university’s search for a successor to Wake Forest President Thomas K. Hearn Jr., who retires in June 2005. The search committee will include some faculty and board members, including a student trustee, and a non-trustee alumnus.
Murray C. Greason Jr., chairman of the board and the search committee, announced the committee in a letter distributed by e-mail May 27 to Wake Forest faculty, staff, students, alumni and others.
In his letter, Greason wrote that the university plans to select and employ a new president no later than the spring of 2005. The new president would take office July 1, 2005.
The letter was designed to broadly publicize the principal aspects of the plan’s search.
Greason added, “I also want to solicit input from all constituencies of our University regarding other steps that might be taken in the search and what you believe to be the right answer to the question, ‘What are the most important characteristics needed by Wake Forest University in its next president?’”
The university is establishing a Web site to provide information to the public about the search. Although the site is not yet functional, Greason indicated it would be online soon.
“We intend to communicate with you often and seek your input,” Greason wrote. “I will hold a series of open forums on campus in September and October to listen to your concerns and seek your advice.”
Committee members appointed at this stage include seven trustees (including Greason): Simpson (Skip) O. Brown of Winston-Salem; student trustee James A. Dean of Pickerington, Ohio; William B. Greene Jr. of Elizabethton, Tenn.; Deborah D. Lambert of Raleigh; L. Glenn Orr Jr. of Winston-Salem; and K. Wayne Smith of Newton. Other members include Dr. C. Douglas Maynard of Winston-Salem, professor emeritus of radiologic sciences radiology and former chair of the Department of Radiology at the Wake Forest School of Medicine; and Edwin G. Wilson, Wake Forest provost emeritus and professor emeritus of English.
Next week, the trustee members of the search committee will begin work on selecting advisory committees from among the faculty and the university’s volunteer boards and councils. In addition, the trustee members will select to serve on the search committee one faculty member from the graduate and undergraduate schools, one faculty member from the professional schools, and one non-trustee alumni representative from the university’s volunteer boards and councils.
The search committee also intends to contract with a nationally recognized search firm to assist with the identification of prospective candidates.
In his letter, Greason noted that “we do not anticipate that it will be possible to release the names and identifying information of our candidates” for president, as the search progresses. Candidates in whom Wake Forest would be interested would likely require confidentiality, he explained.
