The athletic director post is currently filled by acting-Athletic Director Bob Ceplikas.
Ceplikas took over on July 1, 2009, following previous Athletic Director Josie Harper's announcement of her retirement.
The search was postponed in January following the implementation of a series of budget cuts. The administration announced that it wanted to wait until the full impact of the cuts was felt before launching a search.
According to Spears, the College is now in a position to begin the process. The first step will be hiring a search firm to assist in identifying candidates, she added.
"We anticipate launching the search in the very near future," Spears said. "A lot of logistics are still being ironed out."
The College has not made a decision regarding which search firm it will hire, she said.
"We've been talking to a few search firms, looking for the right match for Dartmouth," Spears said. "As soon as we make that decision, then all of a sudden you'll see probably lots of activity around the AD search."
Spears also noted that an outside service makes the process easier and more efficient by doing a lot of the recruiting necessary to create a strong candidate pool.
"Search firms, especially in athletics, are really valuable," she said. "The athletic community is vibrant and active, and it's very helpful too have a search firm that can identify the right candidates across the country and can find the right match."
The College's search committee is headed by Joe Belbruno, a professor in the chemistry department and the football team's faculty advisor, while the vice-chair is assistant dean of development and administration Tracy Walsh. The committee itself will include faculty, staff and student members.
Still, the hiring of a national firm does not preclude the possibility of internal hiring, Spears said, as current coaches are among those being considered.
"Internal candidates are certainly welcome," she said. "They'll go through the same process that any external candidate would go through."
Before the current search was postponed, the committee had hoped to reach a decision by July 1. This time frame has been typical of the College, with Ceplikas and Harper both hired in the month of July.
The College's decision to postpone the athletic director search was met by some criticism including in a Valley News article by Don Mahler, who wrote that new coaches should be hired by the athletic director under whom he or she will be working. Mahler cited a 1983 incident between then-men's basketball coach Reggie Minton and then-Athletic Director Ted Leyland.
The College hired Minton as its head basketball coach in 1982, the year before it hired Leyland. Minton left less than a year after Leyland arrived, in part because he was concerned about the support he was getting from an athletic director that had not hired him, according to Mahler.
Athletic director searches have been notably contentious in more recent history as well. In 2002, the last time a new athletic director was hired, the College experienced its share of controversy. The original choice for the post was Charles Harris, but information surfaced that Harris had falsified his credentials when applying for a position earlier in his career, claiming to have a Master's Degree when he had only achieved a Bachelor's.
Even though he had not falsified the information in his application to Dartmouth and was not called upon to resign, the ensuing media furor compelled him to voluntarily withdraw, The Dartmouth previously reported.
In a letter released at the time, he blamed his youth and a competitive job market for his past falsifications.
The resignation led to the hiring of Harper several days later, who was the senior associate director of athletics at the time.
