The Emory University Board of Trustees voted unanimously on Friday, Nov. 13, to appoint a 14-member Presidential Selection Committee that will carry out the search for Emory’s next president, according to John Morgan, chair of Emory’s Board of Trustees.
The Presidential Selection Committee includes Emory professors, alumni, trustees and one current student. The Board plans for the selection process to conclude in the summer of 2016, alongside President James W. Wagner’s retirement.
Also on Friday, the Board approved a framework that will guide the presidential selection process, Morgan wrote in an all-Emory email. This framework will include an “executive search firm,” which will help Committee members identify and establish communications with potential candidates for the presidency.
The Board also launched a website on Friday, to encourage input from the Emory community regarding the selection, Morgan wrote.
The website features a questionnaire in which community members can convey their expectations for the next president, and answer questions such as, “What are the most important qualities the next president of Emory should possess?”
Morgan wrote that the Committee intends to update the Emory community regularly on its progress.
“I am privileged to chair a committee that represents such a wonderfully talented, diverse and engaged cross-section of the Emory community,” he wrote.
The 14 Committee members, according to the email, are listed below:
- Rafi Ahmed, director of the Emory Vaccine Center and professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology
- Susan A. Cahoon, trustee and 1968 graduate of Emory College of Arts and Sciences
- Susan Cruse, senior vice president for development and alumni relations
- Michele Davis, president of the Emory Alumni Board and 1987 graduate of Emory College of Arts and Sciences
- John T. Glover, trustee and 1968 graduate of Emory College of Arts and Sciences
- Jonathan K. Layne, trustee and 1979 graduate of the Goizueta Business School and the School of Law
- John F. Morgan, trustee and chair of the Presidential Selection Committee; 1969 graduate of Goizueta Business School
- Carol Newsom, Charles Howard Candler Professor of Old Testament
- Leah Ward Sears, trustee and 1980 graduate of the School of Law
- Raj Tilwa, president of the Student Government Association (SGA) and College senior
- Natasha Trethewey, Robert W. Woodruff Professor of English and Creative Writing; director of the Creative Writing department and United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry
- Chilton D. Varner, trustee emerita and 1976 graduate of the School of Law
- Gregory J. Vaughn, trustee and 1987 graduate of Emory College of Arts and Sciences
- Michael Watson, trustee and 1974 graduate of the Candler School of Theology
