Provost Search Update April 2009

The Provost Search Advisory Committee met all day April 3, concluding a paper review of a narrowed pool of applicants for the position of university provost. As the pool was narrowed, we looked for top level leaders who had demonstrated effective leadership, clear understanding of the multiple forms of education offered at Bethel University, commitment to our mission and core values, and Christian faith in our evangelical, pietistic tradition that was evident in their lives. The seven selected applicants completed a standard faculty application, including questions on personal faith and a philosophy of education; a curriculum vita; and extended responses to a number of questions developed by the committee. These included the following:

+ Please briefly define the following terms: diversity, reconciliation, antiracism, and social justice. Then write a brief narrative illustrating from your life, leadership, and faith journey how you have lived out these ideas. Please refer to choices you have made about your lifestyle, actions, and discipleship.

+ Describe the essential elements of your leadership style and how this style would enable you to excel in the organizational, academic, fiscal, and spiritual leadership of Bethel University. Include a high and a low point from your past leadership experiences and tell us what you learned from them.

+ The university seeks to prepare men and women for lives of scholarship, service, leadership, and reconciliation in church and society. What qualities, in terms of intellect, character, interpersonal relationships, and Christian faith must the university seek to nurture to build maturity for such preparation?

+ How has your faith journey defined you as a person and prepared you to be Provost of a university rooted in the evangelical, pietistic traditions of the Christian church?

+ This position provides leadership for all curricular and co-curricular education at Bethel. How would you describe the likely unique contribution of each of the academic units—traditional College of Arts and Sciences, nontraditional College of Adult and Professional Studies, Graduate School, and Bethel Seminary—to Bethel’s understanding of itself as a university? How do you see each contributing to the fulfillment of the institution’s mission?

The next stage in the process will be face to face interviews with a small group of applicants in the next two weeks. This is consistent with the proposed timeline announced in January.