The University hopes to announce both the inaugural director for the planned center for the study of slavery and justice and a replacement director for the Office of Institutional Diversity by the end of the academic year, administrators said at the Brown University Community Council meeting yesterday.
Members of the council also presented a report from the University Resources Committee and an update on relations between the University and the city of Providence.
Dean of the Faculty Kevin McLaughlin P'12 told The Herald in September that the University was in contact with a final candidate for the director of the slavery and justice center and that the director would be announced within four to six weeks. At yesterday's meeting, he reported that the search committee had found two candidates, one in 2009 and another this year, who were both unable to take the position due to personal reasons. But the University hopes to hire someone by the end of this academic year, McLaughlin said.
"What I'm here to report to you this afternoon is that we're in a very good position to make this a real success story for Brown, and I'm very confident that we will," he said.
The recruitment process for high-level positions can typically take at least three years, McLaughlin said.
The search committee for a new institutional diversity director received 36 applications and will conduct interviews over winter break, said Provost Mark Schlissel P'15. The committee will present finalists to Schlissel and President Ruth Simmons in the spring, he said.
In his presentation of a report from the URC, Schlissel noted that while tuition has increased, financial aid has increased at a similar rate. Tuition has stayed at about the same percentage of the University's total revenue, even as revenue has increased, he said.
Marisa Quinn, vice president for public affairs and University relations, presented to the council on University-city relations.
"I think we are often seen, in Rhode Island, as a very resourced institution," Quinn said. "We loom large in this little state."
