By Michael Charboneau and Laura Sanicola
Maura B. Mast, Ph.D, of the University of Massachusetts Boston, is slated to be the new dean of Fordham College at Rose Hill, effective in August 2015.
Dr. Mast will replace Dr. John P. Harrington, dean of Arts and Sciences faculty, who has been serving as interim dean of FCRH while the search for a permanent dean was conducted.
The announcement was made by Stephen Freedman, Ph.D., provost of Fordham University on Friday afternoon.
At UMass Boston, Mast served as special assistant to the provost since 2013 and associate vice provost for undergraduate studies since 2009.
Mast is a noted mathematician and researcher with a focus of study in differential geometry.
She is currently on the executive board of the Association for Women in Mathematics, and previously served as secretary. Formerly, she was co-chair of the Joint Committee on Women in the Mathematical Sciences, and chair and executive committee member of the Special Interest Group of the Mathematical Association of America on Quantitative Literacy.
Michael Latham, the last permanent dean of FCRH, announced his departure from Fordham in the fall of 2013 after serving in the position since 2009. The search for his replacement commenced early in the fall of 2014, when a committee formed to facilitate the search process. Dr. James Hennessy, dean of the Graduate School of Education, served as the committee chair. He has previously chaired two other search committees at Fordham.
The committee was comprised of Dr. Carla Romney, associate dean for STEM and Pre-Health Education, and eight FCRH faculty from a broad range of departments, including English, Art History and Psychology.
“It was representative across the humanities, the social and behavioral and the hard sciences,” Hennessy said. “You want a committee that represents the faculty the dean will be serving.”
In consultation with the provost’s office and interim dean Harrington, the committee members worked through the fall semester of 2014 to draft a description of the vacant position and a list of criteria they were looking for in an ideal candidate. By Thanksgiving, they had completed the position description and began to post job advertisements in a variety of publications, including The Chronicle of Higher Education and The New York Times. In addition, the committee members tapped their own professional networks to spread the word.
“The announcement was posted pretty far and wide,” said Hennessy.
In January of this year, the committee started to review applications. Promising candidates were invited to an “airport interview,” which took place at a neutral location away from Fordham (often near an airport, so out-of-state candidates could fly in and return home easily).
The last stage in the committee’s review process occurred just before Easter Break, when they invited a select group of candidates to Fordham for on-campus interviews. After those interviews, the committee narrowed their applicant pool down to 3 to 5 candidates. The decision then moved to Rev. Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of the university and Dr. Freedman, who selected the new dean from the committee’s recommendations.
“We’re not making the decision,” said Hennessy. “We’re presenting a slate of people who we believe could all do the job.”
In its search, the committee first sought candidates with strong academic backgrounds and experience, especially since deans are considered for tenure upon their appointment.
“We wanted people who were demonstrated, proven,” Hennessy said. “People who understand the deanship and who were ready to take it on, and who have credible and solid academic experience that would get them tenured at the university.”
In addition, the candidates had to demonstrate a commitment to faith-based education and come into the interview process with real ideas on how to move FCRH forward as a school. These ideas ranged from finding ways to support more undergraduate research to working on how to increase diversity at FCRH. Overall, though, Hennessy said that the candidates had to demonstrate that they could work well with the FCRH faculty. In that regard, the eight faculty members played a big role in determining the committee’s final recommendations.
“Their voices were the determinative voices,” he said.
–Erin Shanahan assisted reporting
