At the beginning of September, a search committee tasked with finding a new provost for Saint Joseph’s University formed, officially starting the search for a new Chief Academic Officer.

The committee has held one internal meeting and four open forums in collaboration with the search. The recruiting firm Isaacson Miller has also spent time gathering input and comments from the St. Joe’s community.

“We want to hear all the voices…to help us shape a vision for what this position is and should be and what we’re looking for in the person that we would bring into Saint Joseph’s,” said Fran DiSanti, chief information officer and chair of the search committee.

One of the goals of the search committee is to make sure that academics and students are the center focus, DiSanti said. The hope is to find someone who is open to innovation and adaptable to change; someone who can make St. Joe’s more agile.

Ann Green, Ph.D., professor of English and president of Faculty Senate, explained that the forums have been a successful way of recognizing common themes across the university in terms of what each area wants to see in a new provost.

“People are interested in a strong provost who’s a good academic leader, who can help us adapt to the changing landscape of higher ed and build on Saint Joseph’s strengths,” Green said.

DiSanti also offered his own hopes for what the new provost will bring to the table.

“I feel personally that the provost needs to set a clear strategic vision [and] well articulated goals that we can rally behind,” he said.

Marissa Tremoglie, ’17, is the student representative on the search committee. At the student forum, Tremoglie said that the topic of academics and maintaining Jesuit principles was an idea continuously brought up.

“There was definitely a lot of talk about the need for funding for things like summer scholars and student research…and I think the students really brought up how valuable and enriching those out of class experiences were for them, and the need to continue to support them,” Tremoglie said.

DiSanti also spoke of specific issues that the faculty brought up in their open forum.

“[The faculty] want someone that’s going to come in having done important scholarly work, real scholarly work, and that this person understands what it means to be a faculty member and understands how important research is in the life of a faculty member, and values that,” DiSanti said.

Green said that the search process is still in its very early stages.

“It’s pretty nebulous,” she said. “We’re still gathering information, and it’s a complicated process because you’re trying to find the right person with the right skill set who also wants to come here.”

Besides holding open forums and gathering input, the search committee and Isaacson Miller are working on creating an official advertisement and profile that will be sent out to all prospective and interested candidates. This profile, according to Green and DiSanti, is usually seven to eight pages in length and outlines exactly what the institution is looking for in a new hire.

After the profile is sent out, the next step in the process will be to ask members of the community for confidential provost recommendations. Then the initial screenings of the candidate and interviews will be held sometime from January to March, with the hope that a decision will be made and announced by the end of the 2015-2016 academic year, according to both DiSanti and Green.

Current Interim Provost Rosalind Reichard has been at St. Joe’s since June 2014 and when asked why it took so long to begin the search for a permanent provost, Green ex- plained that the new president had to be found first.

“We needed to see what the [new] president wanted to do in terms of direction to fill in the other positions,” said Green.

The members of the search committee come from all different facets of the university. All the members were invited by University President Mark C. Reed, Ed.D., to participate, DiSanti said.

Tremoglie was recommended through the Office of Student Life, who said they were looking for a student familiar with academic rigor and the needs of students both inside and outside of the classroom. She is a McNulty Scholar as well as a research fellow at the Institute of Catholic Bioethics and sacristan at the Chapel of St. Joseph.

Tremoglie said her primary goal while serving on the committee is to identify com- mon themes that students need, and advocate for those topics on the committee.

In addition to the forums, students will soon receive an online form that will allow them to provide their own personal thoughts on what they would like to see in their new academic leader.