Emory University will enter the final stretch of its search for a new vice president and dean of campus life today, and Cornell’s John L. Ford, the Robert W. and Elizabeth C. Staley Dean of Students, will be in Atlanta vying for the position.
One of four remaining finalists for the opening, Ford had contacted Emory six months ago in response to a national advertisement that appeared in the Chronicle for Higher Education, according to Marshall Duke, chair of the search committee at Emory.
Ford will be considered by Emory President Bill Chase and Provost Rebecca Chopp in two weeks when a final decision is made at the culmination of interviews and recommendations.
“We have gone to the best places in the country to find [these applicants],” Duke said of the candidates remaining, “all of whom or any of whom can do the job.”
The former Vice President and Dean of Campus Life, Frances Lucas-Tauchar, left Emory in July to assume the presidency at Millsaps College, a liberal arts school in Jackson, Miss.
Cornell administrators, surprised by Ford’s pursuit of the Emory position, expressed appreciation for the Dean’s contributions to the Ithaca campus.
“He has had national experience in university administration, and he has done a great job as dean,” said Henrik N. Dullea ’61, vice president of University Relations.
Since 1992 Ford has overseen student programs and activities, among other elements of campus life, and he was named an American Council on Education Fellow in 1998.
Dullea added, “If they are reaching out across the country, then I am not surprised that they are looking at Dean Ford.”
As undergraduate lecturer, graduate professor and department chair in the College of Human Ecology, Ford has been a member of the Cornell community since 1974. He was reappointed to a second five-year term as dean on July 1, 1997.
The other three remaining candidates for the vice presidential position are F. Javier Cevallos, the University of Massachusetts vice chancellor for students affairs, Cynthia Cherrey, the University of Southern California assistant vice president for student affairs and Howard Rollins, the executive director of the Institute for Comparative and International Studies at Emory.
Archived article by Matthew Hirsch