President Ted Carter Jr. addresses the media after the State of the University Address on April 11. During the address, he said the university is weeks away from selecting its new provost. Credit: Molly Goheen | Managing Editor for Digital Content
One hundred days into Ted Carter Jr.’s Ohio State presidency and six months since former provost Melissa Gilliam announced her departure, the university has yet to appoint a permanent leader.
On Wednesday, Carter said Ohio State is weeks away from making a selection for the role, which is currently occupied by an interim leader, Karla Zadnik, dean of the College of Optometry. This is one of at least eight open searches for leaders within Carter’s administration, including deans for all four regional campuses, currently being executed by private search firms.
“I’m excited to tell you that we have an amazing talent that’s interested in this job,” Carter said Wednesday. “Our brand is attracting people from all over the country — all over the world — that want to come in and work at Ohio State.”
The search for provost, facilitated by California-based firm Education Executives, looks to replace Gilliam, who left before Carter’s arrival. According to the job posting, the provost reports directly to the president and acts as chief academic officer and executive vice president.
In addition, the deans of all 15 academic colleges and university libraries report to the provost, who oversees the four regional campuses and the Wexner Center for the Arts.
“The provost, in close collaboration with the president and in active consultation with the University Senate, has responsibility for ensuring the academic prominence and impact of Ohio State by guiding academic planning efforts, promoting university-wide initiatives, recruiting and retaining an outstanding faculty, and formulating academic policies,” the job posting reads.
Carter, who holds a bachelor’s degree, said he is looking for someone with a more extensive academic background to complement him in the role.
“The provost search is the most important hire I’m making. I know who I am and what I am, and I know who and what I am not,” Carter said. “I do not come from the classically trained academic hierarchy. I need somebody that is that.”
As the job posting puts it, the university is looking for a provost who has “a keen understanding of the higher education landscape and an entrepreneurial mindset to leverage the considerable resources of the university in pursuit of an even higher level of excellence, impact, and recognition.”
This is something that Judith Wilde, a professor who researches university leadership at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government, said can be true for more atypical university leaders.
“What we’re seeing more often — I would not call it typical yet — is a real differentiation between the two roles where the provost is really the one who works with the deans and watching the academic side of the house,” Wilde said. “The president is more externally facing and is meeting with donors, meeting with legislators — certainly still the leader of the university but in a different way.”
Even so, the posting stipulates that the provost should be comfortable in both internal academic- and external-facing roles.
“First and foremost, the provost should be a community builder who engages and listens to the numerous stakeholders, bringing together people and programs across the entire university,” the post reads. “At the same time, the provost will need to communicate frequently with all stakeholders as they steward the university forward to embrace the changes of these dynamic times.”
In addition to the search for provost and deans of the regional campuses, Ohio State is also looking for deans of the Moritz College of Law, College of Public Health and Fisher College of Business. At the State of the University address Thursday, Carter said the university is weeks away from announcing the deans of the four regional campuses and has just started the search for the law and business school.
