The Dean of the College Search Committee will present a list of final candidates to College President James Wright sometime this term, from which Wright will select a new dean of the College.
According to Dean of the Faculty Edward Berger, who chairs the committee, Wright asked the committee to present him with "an unranked list of four finalists."
Dan Nelson has been serving as the acting dean of the College since former Dean of the College Lee Pelton resigned in June to become the president of Willamette University in Salem, Ore.
Berger said he hopes to bring the candidates to campus later this term for an on-campus interview. He said it is possible there will be a fifth candidate "just in case."
Over the summer, the committee met to discuss between 60 and 100 applications for the position and conducted a round of off-campus interviews with a number of candidates, according to Berger.
Former College President James Freedman said in April he hoped the committee would find a new dean of the College over the summer.
The committee consists of representatives from the faculty, administration and student body.
The administrators on the committee are Director of Alumni Relations Nelson Armstrong, College Counsel and Director of External Relations Cary Clark and Assistant Provost Sheila Culbert.
The faculty committee members are Religion Professor Susan Ackerman, History Professor Richard Kremer and Anthropology Professor Deborah Nichols.
Kremer is on sabbatical this term in Munich, Germany, but Berger said the committee has tried to have meetings with conference calls in order to include Kremer.
Watt Boone '00, Frode Eilertsen '99 and Cara Mathews '99 were chosen as student representatives to the committee, but Eilertsen resigned early in the summer "because of a conflict with scheduling," Berger said.
Boone is on the History Foreign Study Program in London this term. Berger said it has been more difficult to include Boone in meetings since he has been away.
