Isaacson, Miller partner Vijay Saraswat (middle) and search committee co-chair David Daleke (right) led the Thursday morning listening session with IU faculty.
(Ethan Sandweiss, WTIU News)
IU Bloomington is getting a new leader, but the exact nature the role is still developing. IU community members were invited to listening sessions this week to tell the search committee what they want it to be.
Vijay Saraswat is leading the firm’s side of the search alongside his coworker Gale Merseth. Dean of the IU Bloomington Graduate School David Daleke and Bloomington Faculty Council president Danielle DeSawal are co-chairing the search committee.
The chancellor will assume many of the provost's current responsibilities, while the provost will focus mainly on academic affairs. The chancellor will be a member of the president’s cabinet and direct supervisor of the provost, who will transition to a more academic-focused role.
The structural change will also allow university president Pamela Whitten to take a step back from Bloomington, IU Trustee Quinn Buckner said in June. Between protests and no-confidence votes, the flagship campus has proven itself difficult for the president to manage.
Saraswat said an ideal chancellor can’t be a newcomer to university governance and conflict on campus.
A full job description hasn’t been posted yet, although applications have opened. Daleke and Saraswat said they hope these listening sessions will help them shape the role.
Saraswat said he hopes the search committee will approve a final position profile within a few weeks. He said the timeline for filling the role is still unclear.
There were four other listening sessions later in the day for faculty, staff, graduate students and undergraduates. Another five are scheduled for Friday.
Thursday morning’s attendance was sparse, but some general themes emerged from faculty comments.
Respect for Bloomington’s uniqueness
Germanic studies professor Fritz Breithaupt said the chancellor should recognize Bloomington’s standout programs rather than “conform to some average mean of the Big Ten.”
He said some faculty perceived guidance from the top as pushing the university toward conformity. Breithaupt cited the Kinsey Institute and Jacobs School of Music as two exceptional programs that could be threatened by a drift to the center.
“The problem with bringing in some of the outsiders is that they don’t have that history,” he said. “They may pay lip service to it as our current leaders have done, but then they do very little to advance it — not just protect it as if they were little objects, but to advance it and push it forward.”
A language professor echoed that sentiment, citing staffing troubles that threaten to eliminate IU’s Italian, Portuguese and Dutch programs. IU currently offers more languages than any other university in the United States, but cuts to the College of Arts and Sciences make it extremely difficult to replace the faculty who offer them.
One senior scientist said he wanted the chancellor to protect Bloomington’s unique role in the IU system. He felt that the growth of IU Indianapolis could become a threat unless the new leader helped “IU Bloomington define itself as IUI defines itself.”
Centralization, he said, ignores the distinct cultures of both campuses, and competition for resources could affect the opportunities available in Bloomington.
The IU Board of Trustees appeared sympathetic to these concerns when they announced the role in June, saying they prefer a candidate “who is familiar with IU Bloomington.”
Empowered to push back on administration and state
But they also expressed that the chancellor should be able to stand up to internal authorities.
“At least for me, the elephant in the room here is how would this new position cooperate with the president and provost,” Breithaupt said. “It’s not a secret that we have a very tense situation right now on campus.”
One man in the back of the auditorium worried about the apparent tension between what faculty want and how the chancellor will actually function.
“I think anybody who reaches that final stage who isn’t aware of these dynamics is not the right person in the first place,” Saraswat said. “If they aren’t coming in with their eyes open as to how challenging some of these issues will be to address, authentically and straightforwardly and openly, they’re not going to succeed regardless.”
Accessible, transparent, and responsive
Faculty present reiterated some of their longstanding complaints with university leadership, citing their unwillingness to talk with pro-Gaza protesters and graduate workers as evidence of a refusal to engage with opinions they disagree with.
They compared that with presidents at some other universities who talked to student protesters.
Others expressed frustration with a lack of transparency over budget, which they said makes hiring and planning feel impossible for departments.
Wayne Winston, a professor emeritus and husband of an IU trustee, said the chancellor should be able to help.
“Be transparent with budgeting,” he said. “It’s impossible to figure out how much money goes to centralization, how much goes to IUB, the faculty, the departments.”
Daleke also responded to those concerns.
“The (search) committee is a majority faculty,” he said. “They actually have some of the same thoughts that you have and they’ve expressed them. I think as we go through the search, that’s going to be part of their consideration when they make recommendations.”
Quotes were used with the permission of the speakers.
