Oakland University is in the final stages of electing a new Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost, permanently filling former Provost Virinder Moudgil’s position.

After Moudgil was offered a position as President of Lawrence Tech University, the spot was temporarily filled by Susan Awbrey, who currently serves as Interim Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost.

Dave Dulio, search committee chair, said the hiring process started in August 2012, when the committee formed. The committee decided to hire the search firm Academic Search to aid in the process of hiring a new provost. Both groups began meeting in September 2012.

Aside from meeting with OU’s search committee, Academic Search met with a number of constituency groups around campus, according to Dulio.

Fishing for a candidate

“The search committees developed a job ad and both an institution and professional profile,” Dulio said. “It served as a detail explanation of what we were looking for in terms of qualifications and attributes in the next provost.”

He said the job posting was distributed widely in a number of online and print outlets across the country, including The Chronicle For a Higher Education. A total of 68 applications from across the country were received.

“As applications came in, the search committee reviewed every one of them and we received a total of 68 applications,” Dulio said.

OU’s search committee consisted of faculty, staff and a single student, who happened to be Samantha Wolf, student body president.

“We (the committee) went through all the résumés and cover letters before deciding our top choices,” Wolf said. “It kept me really busy and I found reading the résumés on my own time was best, so I often did over the weekend.”

Wolf said she was able to make it work because she kept her main focus in mind, which was making sure the students’ voices were heard during the selection process.

“I think a lot of people look at the provost and think they’re just an advocate for faculty, but they forget they have to be an advocate for students as well,” Wolf said.

Process of elimination

The search committee narrowed the applications to a list of 10 semi-finalists who were then invited to participate in neutral site interviews held at Detroit Metro Airport.

“Only eight of the 10 candidates participated and we thoroughly reviewed the eight individuals,” Dulio said.

The interview process lasted a total of two days, and the eight applicants were narrowed down to four.

“We brought the four candidates to campus, where they met with various and many groups of individuals across campus for a day and a half,” Dulio said.

Wolf said the four candidates met with President Russi as well as student leaders, including members of The Oakland Post staff.

“After the interviews, we re-met and decided who we thought best fit the OU community,” she said.

The final stages

After campus interviews, the list dropped one and now consists of three finalists.

“It’s an intense process,” Dulio said. “The search committee had to make reports and submit them to the president. Meanwhile, our mission all along was to identify the best candidates from the set of applications.”

The three finalists are Premu Arasu, vice provost of international programs and professor of parasitology at Washington State University, John Koropchak, vice chancellor for research and graduate dean, and professor of chemistry and biology at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, and H. Keith Moo-Young, professor and dean of the college of engineering, computer science and technology at California State University.

“The new provost needs to be someone who can do a number of things — they’ll need to be the chief academic officer while keeping academics at the center of  discussion of on campus,” Dulio said. “They need to advocate for academic affairs for the institution while leading the entire campus, second only to the president.”

“I really hope the new provost will be an advocate for faculty as well as students,” Wolf said. “I’m excited, and I think all of the finalist are advocates for students.”

Dulio said everyone on the committee had a keen understanding of the importance of the search.

“We know that the person who is the next provost will be charged with meeting the goals that have been set for the university,” he said.

The new Provost is scheduled to assume office July 1, according to the current timeline.