A top University of Hawai‘i official is one of three finalists for the position of provost and vice president for academic affairs at Virginia Tech University.
Dean Smith, UH senior vice president and executive vice chancellor of the Manoa campus, confirmed yesterday he is a finalist for the Virginia Tech job, but said he has not yet visited the campus in Blacksburg, Va.
Smith also said he does not plan to leave UH-Manoa. "Not if I don’t have to," he said. "My main goal right now is helping Manoa with its accreditation."
An accreditation team from the Western Association of Schools and Colleges will visit Manoa in early 2002.
Smith said he has received calls from about a dozen out-of-state recruiters but has withdrawn his name from consideration for several positions.
Smith has had an hourlong interview with Virginia Tech officials and will visit the campus later, but said he would not characterize his position as a finalist as serious right now.
The other candidates for the job are Ellen Wartella, dean of the college of communications at the University of Texas at Austin; and Mark McNamee, dean of the division of biological sciences at the University of California at Davis.
The provost and vice president for academic affairs at Virginia Tech is the chief academic officer of the university and reports to the president.
At UH, President Kenneth Mortimer announced his retirement last year and the university regents decided to restructure the administration of the Manoa campus with a chancellor’s office separate from the president’s.
Smith has been senior vice president and executive vice chancellor at Manoa since 1997. He was the senior vice president for research and dean of the graduate division previously and a faculty member of the medical school. He came to Hawai‘i from the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
