University Times

The selection of a new senior vice chancel- lor for Health Sciences has been postponed until a successor to Chancellor J. Dennis O'Connor is named.

O'Connor told Senate Council at its May 17 meeting that the decision to delay the appointment was made after talks with Pitt Board of Trustees Chair Farrell Rubenstein and Chair-elect J. W. Connolly.

According to O'Connor, Rubenstein and Connolly told him they felt that the University's new chancellor should be allowed to make the decision on a new senior vice chancellor for Health Sciences.

University Senate President James Holland reacted to O'Connor's announcement by expressing concern over the administration's failure to fill the senior vice chancellor job after two searches.

Holland said he is worried about the "implications of lack of leadership" and the "lack of solving whatever the problems are that keep us from being able to recruit some of these good, top people we've had in both searches." While adding he is confident that the faculty in the Health Sciences "will be able to carry on," Holland said, "I am disappointed. I think it is a great loss to have a further hiatus" until a new chancellor is recruited.

O'Connor took exception to Holland's characterization of the recent search as a failure. O'Connor pointed out that a large number of individuals, more than 130, applied for or were recommended for the post.

"We had four marvelous candidates," he said, "absolutely superb candidates for the position." The chancellor's office has not released the names of the four finalists for the post, but O'Connor said one of them, Edward Benz, chair of the Department of Medicine in Pitt's School of Medicine, has accepted a position as director of the department of medicine at Johns Hopkins University.

After Benz's decision to leave Pitt was announced, Rubenstein and Connolly concluded that the new chancellor should make the decision on a new senior vice chancellor for Health Sciences, according to O'Connor.

The first search to fill the position was launched in summer 1992 after Senior Vice Chancellor for Health Sciences Thomas Detre announced plans to retire on Aug. 31, 1993. That search ended in summer 1993, when the University could not reach an agreement with any of the four candidates selected by the search committee. Plans to launch a new search were announced at the beginning of September 1993, but canceled later that month by O'Connor. The chancellor said he was delaying the search at that time because of the introduction of President Bill Clinton's national health care reform plan and its implications for academic health centers.

O'Connor also said he was postponing the search because a search for a new provost was being conducted and he felt there was a need for continuity in the senior administration while the provost search was underway. To insure continuity in the senior administration, Detre agreed to stay on as senior vice chancellor for Health Sciences until a successor was named. A second search began in September 1994 and produced the four finalists whose names were given to the chancellor in March.

Although the chancellor's office has never released the names of the four finalists, the names of the eight semifinalists were announced by the search committee in late February. In addition to Benz, they included: * C. McCollister Evarts, senior vice president for Health Affairs and dean of the College of Medicine at Penn State.

* Bernadine P. Healy, senior policy adviser, The Page Center of the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, and former director of the National Institutes of Health.

* Ronald B. Herberman, professor of oncology at Pitt and director of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute.

* David Korn, professor, vice president and dean of the School of Medicine at Stanford University.

* Loren Roth, professor of psychiatry and vice president for managed care at Pitt's Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic.

* Tadataka Yamada, professor and chair of the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan.

Whether a new search committee will be formed to fill the post of senior vice chancellor for Health Sciences is not yet known, according to Vice Chancellor for Student and Public Affairs Leon Haley.

"Any decision on a new search committee would reside with the new chancellor," Haley said. "All this decision does is to delay it [the selection of a new senior vice chancellor for Health Sciences]. I think they're just putting it on hold until such time as a new chancellor's input can be brought to bear." Before launching a new search, Haley said, a new chancellor would at least look at the results of the last search to determine if any of the finalists are still available and if they suit the new chancellor's vision for the position.

Haley also said "there is no further word" on a possible interim senior vice chancellor for Health Sciences.

Detre plans to step down as senior vice chancellor for Health Sciences this summer. He has agreed to serve as interim chairperson of psychiatry from September 1995 through May 1996, while chairperson David Kupfer takes a sabbatical as a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in Palo Alto, Calif.

In a letter to psychiatry faculty, Kupfer emphasized that he plans to return as chairperson at the end of his leave.

–Mike Sajna