Three of the final candidates to replace Geography Professor George Demko, who recently completed his five-year term as director of the Rockefeller Center for the Social Sciences, will be on campus in the next three weeks.
Associate Dean of Faculty George Wolford, who heads the search committee looking for Demko's replacement, said the short list is down to about five candidates.
The committee has been looking since late February, Wolford said.
Wolford said Jack Dovidio from Colgate University, Linda Fowler of Syracuse University and Ted MacDonald of Harvard are three of the five candidates for position. Wolford would not release the other two names.
Wolford said he expects to pick a successor in the next two months. In the meantime, Assistant Director of the Rockefeller Center Roxanne Waldner will serve as director.
Demko, who is now on a year-long sabbatical, said he did not apply for reappointment because "I'm 61 years old."
"I have miles to go before I sleep," Demko said, quoting Robert Frost, "and books to write, articles to write and grandchildren to see ... After five years, everybody runs out of good ideas."
During his tenure as director of the Rockefeller Center, Demko pointed to "three really high points:" creating and fostering the Rockefeller Student Council, increasing the number of publications from the center and work on international conferences.
He said the center has become a more important part of the College since he took office in 1989. He added he enjoyed interaction with other offices at the College.
Waldner said, "He opened up a number of avenues of collaboration between the Rockefeller Center and other areas on campus."
He said he has grown very fond of Dartmouth in his five years here.
"I love it," he said. "Dartmouth is full of very exciting people ... It is a special place. This is a place where students come first, then the faculty. That's the way it should be. I think Dartmouth has got its priorities straight."
Jim Brennan '96, who is the student intern for the Rockefeller Center, said, "Professor Demko was exactly what a director should be," he said. "He was available to students all the time and he definitely cared and was interested in their concerns."
Now that he is on sabbatical, Demko said he plans to travel and continue his work on two books and several articles. When asked whether he would return to Dartmouth he answered with a resounding "yes."
He said in March he will take a Foreign Study Program to Prague, Czech Republic and then return to teaching in the fall.
In the next few weeks, three of the candidates will come to Dartmouth and give lectures. Fowler, a government professor, will give a speech next Monday on term limits in Congress. The following Monday, MacDonald will speak and then on Wednesday, Dovidio will deliver a speech.
The College wants to have the Rockefeller Center focus more on policy related issues, so the search committee looked for candidates with a background in policy, Wolford said.
"If one of these people we've invited up here really excites us we'll stop ... and hire this person," he said.
Waldner said she was excited to run the center in the meantime. "I see it both as an opportunity and a change," she said. "I'll do my best to keep the center moving in a forward direction until they name a new director and that person is on board."
