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NEWS
| October 9, 2003
Administration
Interim provost has no plans to ‘jump
ship’
She says it’s too early
to know what will come once UTA has a president.
By Brad
Rollins
The Shorthorn managing editor
Interim Provost Dana Dunn said this week she is committed to staying
in her job at least until a new president is appointed and “settled
in.”
“I’m not jumping ship,” Dr. Dunn said during an
interview Friday before leaving for an Austin meeting. “I
care about this institution, and I agreed upon accepting this job
to stay until there are new players in place and a new degree of
stability.”
The pronouncement came the week after the fourth senior administrator
since January said he was leaving his position for one at another
university.
But Dunn said she is focused on her duties as interim provost, saying
issues such as the ongoing process of setting higher tuition rates
has kept her occupied. She said the increases are necessary to fix
problems facing the institution, including faculty shortages and
overcrowding in buildings. Meeting challenges is her priority, she
said.
“My plan for the immediate future is to get my work done as
interim provost,” Dunn said. “It’s very premature
at this point to talk about anything else.”
A committee charged with screening applicants for the university
president finished its work in September, sending a list of five
finalists to the UT System Board of Regents. The board is expected
to name a new president before the semester’s end.
Teresa Sullivan, committee chair and UT System executive vice chancellor
for academic affairs declined, through a spokesman, to comment.
Former President Robert Witt resigned in January to take the top
job at the University of Alabama and set off a series of shuffles
at the university’s highest levels. Keith McDowell, the vice
president for research and information technology, said Thursday
he had accepted a role similar to his at UTA at the University of
Alabama under his old boss.
Dunn was named interim provost in June after George Wright left
to be president of Prairie View A&M University. Dr. Wright took
Dan Williams, senior vice president for finance administration,
with him to Prairie View.
Interim President Charles Sorber said a turnover of top administrators
is common when a university president resigns. He said the departing
administrators, in UTA’s case, left to pursue “opportunities
they couldn’t turn down.”
“[The new president] will probably want to create his or her
own team. There has to be chemistry,” Dr. Sorber said. “But
some of the current people may well end up on that team. I could
envision a number of those people dropping the ‘interim’
and staying in these positions permanently.”
Sorber said he will help the new president make the transition “as
long as [he or she] wants me to.”
“I will help as long as I am needed,” he said. “There’s
no urgency. The situation is stable.”
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| Dana
Dunn, interim provost, says she is committed
to seeing UTA through its current challenges.
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