Search begins for Eastman director

Search committee members, from the Eastman School, are Nelita True, keyboard (as committee chair); Donna Brink Fox, music education; Nick Goluses, strings; Donald Hunsberger, conducting; Richard Killmer, woodwinds, brass and percussion; Ralph Locke, musicology; Marie Rolf, music theory and associate dean; Fred Sturm, jazz; Augusta Read Thomas, composition; and Carol Webber, voice.

Additional members, from the central administration and other schools, are Paul Burgett, vice president and dean of students; Dan Harrison, River Campus music department; and Jerold Zimmerman, Simon Graduate School of Business Administration.

Phelps said that the committee will direct the search process, interview selected candidates, conduct relevant background research, incorporate recommendations from an external advisory committee (to be formed later in the search) and from staff and students (in a process to be determined by the committee).

Ultimately, the committee will provide to the president and provost a list of acceptable candidates. The committee will direct a fully open national search, including internal candidates on equal footing, Phelps said.

"While completion of the search by the end of the current semester would be a bonus," he said, "the most important idea is to find the best candidate possible, and hence issues of timing will remain secondary to the proper selection itself."