HAMM REPORTS ON PROGRESS OF PRESIDENTIAL SEARCH; BAZIN, SANDERLIN APPOINTED TO COMMITTEE
The Presidential Transition and Search Committee has conducted preliminary interviews with representatives of three executive search firms and is considering retaining a consultant to help them in their task to find a successor to President James V. Koch, Rector Edward L. Hamm Jr. reported at the Board of Visitors' Executive Committee meeting Nov. 15.
Hamm said the committee would decide within the next three weeks how it plans to proceed regarding the retention of outside assistance, noting that the search itself would need to begin in January.
Hamm, who was elected to chair the search committee, said he would report on the group's progress at the Board of Visitors meeting Dec. 9.
In response to a question from board member Lois Williams about the role a consultant might play, Hamm said the search committee had not reached a conclusion on the matter, but he added that a consultant might be asked to prepare a study of the university, similar to the review of Old Dominion by James L. Fisher Ltd. that was completed in spring 1989 to assist the Board of Visitors and the search committee at that time in their search for a successor to William B. Spong Jr.
At the Nov. 15 meeting, the board unanimously approved the appointments of a faculty and student representative to the search committee: Nancy Topping Bazin, eminent scholar of English, and September Sanderlin, a part-time undergraduate student who also works full time at the university as a training and development coordinator for the Department of Human Resources.
Hamm also announced that George Dragas Jr. '58, the former board rector who chaired the presidential search committee in 1989, had been elected vice chair of the new search committee.
Other former rectors serving on the search committee are James F. Babcock, Arthur A. Diamonstein, James K. Hall '57, Arnold B. McKinnon and Anne B. Shumadine.
Current board members serving on the committee include Elizabeth W. Atkinson, Nancy P. Cheng, the Rev. Anthony C. Paige, Patricia W. Perry, Lawrie Falck Rollison and Lois S. Williams.