With next year's departure of Hopkins Provost Steven Knapp to his new appointment as president of the George Washington University, Hopkins is forming a search committee to find his successor.
Since the provost's position covers the entire University, President William Brody has worked with the deans of all the schools in creating a broadly representative committee. The deans themselves will interview the finalists, but it is likely that the committee will contact more than 100 candidates in the process, of whom perhaps a dozen will be interviewed in the first round.
"There will be a strong emphasis on reaching out nationally and making sure that women and minority candidates are included in the pool," Knapp said. If the University follows its usual process, the search committee will focus on a short list of perhaps three candidates to present to Brody, who would then decide on a single candidate to recommend to the Board of Trustees for final approval.
In previous years, there have been student protests in order to garner more student representation on the search committees. During the search for Hopkins' 11th president, only one undergraduate student was appointed to the committee, alongside 15 faculty members. Today, search committees for university appointments include representatives from the JHU faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students. Suggestions and nominations from the rest of the university community are a vital part of the selection process.
"We are just forming the provost search committee so we have not even advertised the position and have no candidates yet," Brody said.
The standards by which Brody and the provost search committee will choose a new provost have been raised by the work of former Provost Knapp.
"Dr. Knapp has a great understanding of the correlates of academic quality, and he will provide excellent leadership to an institution interested in further enhancing its already impressive academic stature," Vice Provost Paula Burger said.
Knapp's defined role was chief academic officer, responsible for uniting Hopkins' eight schools. Knapp has particularly focused on undergraduate student life with the launch of the Commission on Undergraduate Education purposed to enrich the student experience coupled with the research-concerted tradition of JHU.
Knapp took a firm step in integrating the role of the university in the community on both the national and the international levels. The Urban Health Council, the Urban Health Institute, the Diversity Leadership Council, and the University Committee on the Status of Women are other committees which were implemented and nurtured through his care.
