Four months after Dean of Students Kenneth Elmore resigned, the Office of Provost is yet to create an advisory committee to guide the search, the official first step in the process.
In addition to Elmore, Boston University President Robert A. Brown and the Dean of Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Christopher Moore also announced their retirements for the end of this academic year.
After the University Provost creates an advisory committee, consisting of three elected faculty members from the school with the vacancy, two elected faculty members by the Faculty Council of other schools, and up to three members chosen by the provost, the provost may choose two students to serves on the committee, according to the BU faculty handbook website.
Dean nominations for the vacancy come from constituents within the BU community and “appropriate sources” outside the University.
The committee consults with the provost regularly and after they complete their search process, they will submit the “qualified candidates” with recommendations for the president and Board of Trustees for final decision, according to the faculty handbook.
“I imagine that in the coming weeks the process will begin and a search committee announced,” BU spokesperson Colin Riley wrote in an email.
Student Body President Dhruv Kapadia, a junior in College of Arts and Sciences, who works closely with the Dean of Students office said he believes BU’s lack of keeping students informed about the search is a “weak point of the process” so far.
“There has been a lack of transparency in the process of picking the next dean of students,” he said. “I hope that changes and I really do hope that we get some updates soon and answers soon as well.”
Kapadia said students should be a crucial part of the search.
“Having student voices in that search committee or that body that ends up picking the next dean of students is absolutely vital because that position is intrinsically related to the functioning and success of the student body here at BU,” Kapadia said.
Although this information is available online, students such as senior Kaylan Comenole in CAS and director of Center for Gender, Sexuality & Activism, said they don’t think BU is communicating it enough.
“I really have not heard anything,” they said. “I have no idea where the search committee is or what that timeline looks like or anything so I wish that that was communicated more especially being a student leader.”
With President Brown and other deans retiring, Alexia Avila, a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences, sees this as an opportunity for BU.
“It could be an opportunity if they hire people who maybe are of a younger generation or just more in touch with their student body,” she said.
However, Courtney Caccia, a graduate student in the Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Science, doesn’t think the departures will affect her.
“I feel like I have more so created relationships with the directors at the program and my professors so far,” she said. “I feel like it doesn’t really overly concern me.”
Sunanda Guruprasad, a freshman in CAS, said she sees this as a time for change.
“It gives students new opportunities to create a sort of new environment,” she said. “Obviously, things won’t be completely different, but it gives space for variation and that’s a little exciting.”
