{"id":3718,"date":"2012-03-08T19:28:09","date_gmt":"2012-03-09T00:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/W3\/?p=3718"},"modified":"2012-03-08T19:28:09","modified_gmt":"2012-03-09T00:28:09","slug":"search-for-ubs-next-provost-continues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/search-for-ubs-next-provost-continues\/","title":{"rendered":"Search for UB\u2019s Next Provost Continues"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Provost\"<\/a><\/h1>\n
\n

Junho Lee \/\/\/ The Spectrum<\/p>\n

Arjang A. Assad, dean of the UB School of Management, is one of the four finalists in the search for UB\u2019s next provost. He spoke to faculty, staff, and students at a public forum on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

UB\u00a0Professor\u00a0Arjang\u00a0A.\u00a0Assad\u00a0is one of four finalists for the university’s next provost, and he is the only internal candidate remaining.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday,\u00a0UB\u00a0held a forum for the public to meet and discuss topics with\u00a0Assad. He is the current dean of\u00a0UB’s\u00a0School of Management, having been named in 2008 after serving as a professor at the University of Maryland for 34 years.<\/p>\n

Assad\u00a0believes there is a chance to make a difference as provost through the\u00a0UB\u00a02020 plan.<\/p>\n

“The provost is the person who implements and executes the vision set by the president of the university,”\u00a0Assad\u00a0said. “Some people might think [the\u00a0UB\u00a02020 plan is] too rigid. I don’t. I think having committed to that plan, it has some freedom for the provost and the president to work together to tighten things and to fine-tune things. They haven’t squeezed all the creativity out of the\u00a0system.”<\/p>\n

Assad\u00a0believes the size of faculty and staff needs to increase to serve students at\u00a0UB\u00a0as tuition increases. He believes students expect more with the rise in prices, yet\u00a0UB\u00a0has been cutting budgets for the past two or three years. The Finish in Four program is one that he believes to be a step in the right direction for the university.<\/p>\n

“Finish in Four is not just about the guarantee, but it will hopefully be the mechanism through which we will end up doing the things that are the right things to be doing by our students,”\u00a0Assad\u00a0said. “Students shouldn’t be shut out of sections so they can’t\u00a0graduate.”<\/p>\n

Though the forum was a general meeting to answer questions the public had for\u00a0Assad, David Mark, a professor from the geography department, has hopes for whoever is the future provost.<\/p>\n

“I’m hoping that over the next five years, we’ll have some expansion,” Mark said. “He seems to be very supportive of interdisciplinary [cooperation], and geography already has a joint program with the management school for international trade, and we work with people in the engineering and the medical school and in public health, so I think that’ll be\u00a0encouraged.”<\/p>\n

Erik\u00a0Seeman, director of\u00a0UB’s\u00a0Humanities Institute, hopes\u00a0Assad\u00a0understands the needs of the humanities departments. He thought that the meeting was good for a general question-and-answer session.<\/p>\n

“I thought it was very helpful,”\u00a0Seeman\u00a0said. “It was very good to hear his views on a wide range of important\u00a0topics.”<\/p>\n

Although\u00a0Assad\u00a0hopes to improve the university as a whole, he holds a soft spot in his heart for the Honors College and hopes the university takes pride in the motivated, talented students that are a part of it.<\/p>\n

“As the chief academic officer, the provost always has to have the eye on the prize,”\u00a0Assad\u00a0said. “Our mission is education, and to provide an overall education to the students at\u00a0UB\u00a0to the best of our ability. That’s the driving\u00a0force.”<\/p>\n

On Friday, Professor Charles F.\u00a0Zukoski, chair of biomedical and chemical engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and another candidate for the position, had his own open forum. Kimberly\u00a0Walitzer,\u00a0UB’s\u00a0deputy director of the research institute on addictions, attended the meeting.<\/p>\n

“I thought [Zukoski] was very well-spoken. He talked about his vision for the university and the position of provost,”Walitzer\u00a0said. “I think the best candidate will do the best\u00a0job.”<\/p>\n

By\u00a0LISA EPSTEIN<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Junho Lee \/\/\/ The Spectrum Arjang A. Assad, dean of the UB School of Management, is one of the four finalists in the search for UB\u2019s next provost. He spoke … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3718"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3718\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}