University Times

Faculty and staff groups have named their representatives to the search committee for a new senior vice chancellor for Health Sciences.

Staff Association Council leaders chose SAC vice president Richard Colwell as the staff representative on the search committee. Colwell is an electrical specialist in the School of Engineering.

Faculty elected by ballot to represent their constituencies on the search committee are: School of Medicine — Heidi Feldman, associate professor of pediatrics, and Andrew Peitzman, professor of surgery.

Other Health Sciences schools — Jacqueline Dunbar-Jacob, a professor in the School of Nursing and the Graduate School of Public Health and director of the nursing school's Center for Research in Chronic Disorders, and Nathan Hershey, a professor of health law in the Graduate School of Public Health with a joint appointment in the Katz Graduate School of Business.

Faculty of Arts and Sciences and Provost's area professional schools — James G. Holland, professor of psychology.

The University Senate office, which coordinated the faculty election, received 1,104 valid ballots (737 from Health Sciences faculty, 367 from faculty in FAS and the Provost's area professional schools).

According to Pitt guidelines on senior administrator searches, the committee also will include one graduate student and one undergraduate, along with a committee chairperson and additional members to be named by Chancellor Mark Nordenberg.

Nordenberg had not made those appointments as the University Times went to press.

The new search for a successor to current Health Sciences Senior Vice Chancellor Thomas Detre will be the third since 1992, when Detre first announced plans to retire (on Aug. 31, 1993).

The first search ended in summer 1993, when Pitt failed to reach an agreement with any of the four finalists. Detre agreed to stay on, but later announced plans to retire in summer 1995. However, a second search (chaired by Nordenberg, then a Distinguished Professor of Law) was called off by the Board of Trustees in May 1995 following the resignation of Chancellor J. Dennis O'Connor. Board leaders said that naming a permanent successor to Detre should wait until Pitt hired a new, permanent chancellor.

— Bruce Steele