At a Dec. 3 faculty meeting, Presidential Search Committee Member Prof. Gregory Petsko (BCHM) announced that two subcommittees will be created from within the search committee to identify a search firm that will assist in the presidential search and to develop a mission statement, a document that will be used to attract presidential candidates. Petsko could not be reached despite repeated requests for comment.

The Presidential Search Committee, Faculty Advisory Committee and Student Advisory Committee were created after University President Jehuda Reinharz announced his intention to resign in a Sept. 24 e-mail to the Brandeis community.

Reinharz will remain president until a new president has been selected or until June 30, 2011, according to a Sept. 24 University press release.

At a Dec. 3 Faculty Senate meeting, Chair of the Presidential Search Committee Meyer Koplow '72 said that a draft case statement, a job description for the presidential position, will be soon proposed by the search committee, according to the minutes of the meeting.

Koplow could not be reached despite repeated requests for comment.

"The Faculty Senate will review that case statement, the job description . whatever material is used to promote finding a new president, so we will have a chance to see that before it is publicized. That's what Meyer Koplow assured us," Chair of the Faculty Senate Prof. Sabine von Mering (GRALL) told the Justice.

According to the minutes, the draft case statement will also be circulated within the two advisory committees.

In an e-mail to the Justice, von Mering wrote that Chair of the Board of Trustees Malcolm Sherman suggested using the document created by the search firm Isaacson in the search for the new dean of the Heller School for Social Policy and Management.

"[The document] has several elements, including a summary of the qualities the successful candidate would possess, a history of Brandeis, the mission of Heller and details about the education program, research, faculty and staff, alumni and philanthropy. This is a document the Brandeis presidential search committee will review as it develops its own materials," wrote Senior Vice President of Communications and External Affairs Andrew Gully in an e-mail to the Justice.

At the Faculty Senate meeting, von Mering also suggested that the recently elected co-chairs of the Faculty Advisory Committee should also be added to the Presidential Search Committee following the appointment of the chair of the Student Advisory Committee to the search committee.

"I think that it's a very interesting suggestion, and certainly faculty are eager to have as much faculty representation on the [Presidential Search Committee] as possible, but we understand that the decision is up to the actual Presidential Search Committee," one of the co-chairs of the Faculty Advisory Committee Prof. Robin Feuer Miller (GRALL) said in an interview with the Justice. Prof. Anita Hill (Heller) is the other chair of the Faculty Advisory Committee.

The Presidential Search Committee consists of eight trustees and three faculty members. Student Union President and chair of the Student Advisory Committee Andy Hogan '11 was later appointed as a nonvoting student member to the Presidential Search Committee by Sherman.

"It is going to be very important for [the Faculty Senate] to see the Faculty Advisory Committee have a strong role in the search. . We are still in negotiations with [Koplow] because ... the chair of the Student Advisory Committee has been asked to join the Search Committee, but the chairs of the Faculty Advisory Committee have not," von Mering said in an interview with the Justice.

The administration plans to launch a Web site with information on the presidential search committee and progress of the search by this evening.

Hogan sent out a survey to the student body Jan. 15 to solicit student opinions in the search process. Among other things, the survey asks students to consider what they would like to improve about Brandeis and what characteristics of the University should attract the next president.

Hogan wrote in the e-mail that the results of the survey will be passed to the Presidential Search Committee for further consideration. "The student advisory committee designed the survey and we need students to take it as soon as possible. The advisory committee is looking to gain the opinions of the majority of the Brandeis community on this survey. It is important that students have a voice in this process," Hogan wrote.



-Brian Fromm and Miranda Neubauer contributed reporting.