Charge to search committee

Thank you for agreeing to serve as members of the search committee for a new dean of the College of Biological Sciences (CBS) at the University of Minnesota. I am grateful for your participation in this process, and want to thank Dean Trevor Ames for agreeing to chair the committee and provide leadership to this important search process.

As a senior academic officer, the CBS dean works collaboratively within and across colleges to foster and promote exceptional academic degree programs and research projects. The dean creates a shared vision for the college and provides effective strategic leadership that advances the quality,reputation, and goals of the college. As an institutional leader, the dean garners support for the college from alumni,internal and external stakeholders, including non-profit and for-profit sectors,government and other educational organizations.The dean builds coalitions and promotes outreach efforts that engage the University and its partners to anticipate and respond to statewide, national and international issues. The dean oversees the administration of the college, managing its capital,human,fiscal,and other critical resources;the dean also leads energetic efforts to secure philanthropic support, cultivating development and fundraising opportunities with the public and private sectors in support of the college's academic agenda. The ideal candidate for this position will be a visionary, transformative, inclusive, and decisive leader with the ability to act as a catalyst for creativity, innovation,collaboration,and progress.

We will be in touch with you soon to schedule the first meeting of the search committee and to develop the broader search timelines. I plan to attend a portion of the first meeting to personally deliver the charge to you,discuss the role of the search committee, and share my views on this critical role. At that meeting we will also share a first draft of the position description with you,to obtain your comments and suggestions.

We are in the process of retaining a search consultant to partner with the search committee to finalize the position description, develop an aggressive national search process,and recruit a robust and diverse pool of qualified candidates. While a search consultant will help to advertise this position and to identify and recruit potential candidates for the committee's assessment, the ultimate decisions regarding the search process will rest with the search committee, with my concurrence.

In this formal charge to the search committee, I ask each member to play an active role in identifying qualified individuals, recruiting and encouraging nominations and applications, and monitoring the confidential applicant pool to ensure quality and diversity. The committee will conduct an independent review of the candidate pool and recommend to me a list of individuals that it deems most highly qualified. The list of finalists should be unranked and your confidential recommendations should include qualifications, strengths, and weaknesses of each individual.

Please note that the names of any candidate(s) are not public until I have announced them as finalists. Confidentiality is absolutely essential during the entire search committee phase of this process.

Kate Stuckert in the Office of Human Resources will serve as lead HR staff to the search committee and as a resource on search process issues and guidelines, equal opportunity, confidentiality, and other related human resources matters. Kate Tyler from my office will staff the committee and will be in contact with you soon to schedule the first meeting.

Finally, I recognize the extraordinary time and attention that is involved in conducting a search of this importance, and I very much appreciate your willingness to undertake this critical role. Ialso ask that you please do what you can to rearrange your schedule where possible to accommodate search committee meetings and interviews so that you are able to participate to the fullest extent. Please note that it may be important for the search committee to meet over the summer months,in preparation for making recommendations to me and inviting candidates to campus for public interviews during the fall semester or very early next spring semester.

If you have any questions or need assistance at any time during the search process,please contact Trevor Ames, Kate Stuckert, or Kate Tyler, at your convenience. I look forward to meeting with you at the first search committee meeting.