University Times

Candidates for the School of Information Sciences (SIS) deanship have begun to visit Pitt for meetings with the school's faculty, staff and students, as well as University senior administrators.

SIS dean candidates include:

* SIS Professor Emeritus James G. Williams, who met with administrators and SIS personnel and students on Jan. 28.

* Ronald L. Larsen, executive director of the Maryland Applied Information Technology Institute at the University of Maryland. Larsen visited Pitt on Feb. 5 and 6.

* Judith L. Klavans, director of Columbia University's Center for Research on Information Access. Klavans is scheduled to visit on Feb. 11 and 12.

* George W. Furnas, a professor in the University of Michigan's School of Information. He is scheduled to visit Pitt on Feb. 13 and 14.

* Raymond von Dran, dean of the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University. Von Dran's visit is scheduled for Feb. 22.

The SIS dean search committee may bring one or two other candidates to campus but those visits have yet to be confirmed, said Vice Provost Andrew R. Blair, who chairs the SIS search committee.

The committee plans to recommend a list of four unranked finalists to Provost James Maher by the end of February, Blair said. Pitt's administration hopes to have a new dean in place by July 1.

"We have what I would describe as a 'portfolio' of candidates, representing a range of disciplines within the information sciences," said Blair. "Information sciences is a very broad field. Our own School of Information Sciences has three separate programs: library and information science, information science and telecommunications. Potentially, the next dean could come from any one of those areas or a combination of disciplines."

The new SIS dean will succeed Toni Carbo, who has been dean of the school since September 1986.

Carbo plans to return to teaching and research as a professor in SIS and the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs.

— Bruce Steele