ISU faculty are embarking on a unique experience as the search for the new dean of the College of Human Sciences begins.

A 15-member committee formed to appoint the first dean for the newly combined college will have its first meeting this week.

The College of Human Sciences will be formed from the combination of the College of Education and the College of Family and Consumer Sciences on July 1.

Michael Whiteford, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, is leading the search for a new dean.

Whiteford said the committee is searching for a candidate who demonstrates leadership skills and has a vision of where the new college should go. Committee members are also looking for a candidate with a background in education.

“There’s no question that because we are an academic institution we want to be able to hire somebody who’s professional and professorial credentials are very good,” Whiteford said.

It is also important to committee members that candidates are knowledgeable about what already exists in the colleges that are about to combine.

“It’s going to be a pretty long list of ideal characteristics,” Whiteford said. “The very encouraging thing is that I think we will be pleasantly surprised at the number of credentials candidates have.”

The search process will begin with open forums this month. The dates of these forums will be established at the committee meeting this week.

“As soon as that information is distilled, the search party is going to begin the process of doing a national search,” Whiteford said.

The committee plans to begin its search by advertising in professional journals.

Whiteford said, however, that he believes nominations and active recruiting will also play an important role in the search for a dean.

“Very often, the type of individuals which you want are not going to reply to an ad that appears in one of their professional journals,” he said.

The on-campus interviews are expected to take place sometime this spring with candidates who have progressed through several stages of review.

“What the provost would like is to have a decision made before the end of the academic year,” Whiteford said.

Committee members would like to have a dean appointed by the time the College of Human Sciences is formed on July 1. However, if a new dean is not appointed by then, they hope to have one by the beginning of the 2005-06 school year, Whiteford said.

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln also went through a similar change when its College of Education and College of Family and Consumer Sciences merged about one year ago.

The merger that will take place at Iowa State, however, is different in several ways.

“It was my understanding that the merger at Iowa State was more contentious for one reason or another,” said Julie Johnson, chairwoman of Nebraska’s department of family and consumer sciences.

Faculty at Nebraska didn’t have to search for a dean to lead the new college. One dean was retiring, and the other was given the opportunity to lead the new college, Johnson said.

Johnson said she believes people were generally satisfied with the results of the merger at Nebraska.