Members of the University of Massachusetts Board of Trustees and representatives from the UMass President’s Office yesterday announced the names of those who will serve on the search committee that will find a replacement for Chancellor Robert Holub when he departs by the end of the school year.
The committee – which is composed of 18 people from student, faculty, alumni and trustee bodies – will meet on several occasions and ultimately choose a few finalists for the post.
Once the committee chooses the finalists, UMass President Robert Caret in conjunction with trustees will make a final call on who the next chancellor of the state’s flagship school will be, officials announced yesterday in a press release.
“We are seeking a leader who will take what is already an outstanding public research university and bring it to even higher levels of accomplishment and acclaim,” Caret was quoted as saying in yesterday’s release. “The selection of a permanent Chancellor is of critical importance to both the flagship campus and to the University as a whole.”
Trustee Philip Johnston, who is a UMass graduate, will serve as the chairman of the search committee. Other trustees serving on the committee include Edward Collins, Victor Woolridge and S. Paul Reville, who is also Massachusetts’ secretary of education.
“As a UMass Amherst alumnus, I care deeply about the future of the campus,” Johnston said in the release. “We intend to conduct a search that is open and transparent and look forward to reaching out to candidates who are serious about maintaining the high level of education that exists at UMass Amherst.”
In addition to the trustees, Joseph Bartolomeo, a UMass professor of English; Sergio Brena, a professor of civil and environmental engineering; W. Richards Adrion, a professor of computer science and a faculty delegate to the trustees board; and Mzamo Mangaliso, a professor in the Isenberg School of Management and a graduate of the school, will also be a part of the search team.
Other members of the faculty and student body serving on the committee include Marilyn Billings, an employee of the W.E.B Du Bois Library and a member of the faculty rules committee; Priscilla Clarkson, a dean and professor at the Commonwealth Honors College; Marcellette Williams, the senior vice president for academic affairs, student affairs and international relations; Zachary Broughton, a student and member of the Student Government Association on campus; and Hongmei Sun, a graduate student and president of the graduate student association.
And David Fubini, a UMass graduate and member of the board of directors of the UMass Amherst Foundation; Ronald Grasso Jr., the president of the UMass Amherst Alumni Association who’s also a graduate; John Kennedy, the president of the UMass Amherst Foundation board of directors; and Eugene Isenberg, a 1950 graduate, a member of the board of directors for the UMass Amherst Foundation and the namesake of the Isenberg School of Business, will also serve on the committee.
Johnston also served as the chairman of the seven-member chancellor’s evaluation committee earlier this year, which, according to reports in the Boston Globe earlier this year, apparently gave Holub a negative view and recommended that his contract not be renewed.
Ultimately, it was decided that Holub would continue to serve under the terms of his original contract for this year and then step aside by July 31, 2012.
-Collegian News Staff
