Feb. 11, 2005

Life After Stanley

When Stanley Fish retired as dean of the University of Illinois at Chicago last summer, chattering academics wondered what would happen next. The flamboyant Fish had recruited big names — and lots of attention — to the university’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Could the momentum be sustained?

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The new dean — Christopher M. Comer — is in many ways Fish’s opposite. He’s a neuroscientist, not a literary scholar. He’s been at the university since 1982. You won’t hear gossip about him. Professors elsewhere can’t daydream about calls from him that will lead to bidding wars between Illinois-Chicago and their institutions. But many at the university say that his approach — building departments from the ground up and diversifying the faculty — is smart and essential for the university right now.

Comer’s college now has 15 searches going on — and all of them are for assistant professors, with the caveat that one or two might go to more senior academics if the right person were to come along. The positions have been largely spread out among divisions — only math and psychology have two slots each.

One motivation for hiring assistant professors is budgetary. The college has seen state appropriations shrink the last two years. But Comer says hiring junior faculty members is the right thing to do — and would be even if he had money to go after more senior people.

“I’ve told the faculty very explicitly that even though Stanley had a wonderful effect” in terms of his hiring, “we’re not hiring like that,” Comer says.

“I want people who will be known for their connection to UIC, instead of being known as the people who did good work at Harvard or somewhere, and they are now at UIC,” he says. “You can bring in stars and the program might seem noteworthy,” but you don’t have the “positive impact” of having people who achieved their success at the university.

What does Comer want to see in the new hires? Diversity is a big issue. He is working with all the departments with open positions to talk about barriers to hiring female and minority candidates. He is very excited about an idea out of the chemistry department: doing a “blind” first stage of a search.

David Crich, a professor of chemistry, says that to prevent bias, the department had an assistant remove all names, addresses and institutions from applications before the department’s first review. After the first cut, search committee members were able to see candidates’ full applications. But here too, the department tried something novel. Letters of recommendation were first screened and those that contained “seemingly inappropriate comments” were excluded from consideration.

The search ended up yielding a diverse pool (although Crich is quick to note that previous searches without these techniques have also yielded such diversity). Of the five finalists, there are two women and one minority scholar. Crich said negotiations have started with one candidate, but he declined to say anything more about that person.

Beyond recruiting new people, Comer needs to hold on to the talent his college already has. Plenty of universities are aware that Illinois budgets have been tight — and so far this year 17 faculty members in Comer’s college have received offers elsewhere. He declines to name them, but says most of them are long-time faculty members who were obvious targets because of the minimal raises the college has had to give out.

He aims to keep as many of them as possible. To date, 2 have accepted offers elsewhere, 5 have accepted his counteroffers, and 10 are still deciding.

Like every dean, Comer spends a lot of time on personnel. But he’s also pushing an academic agenda. He would like to improve the facilities for the teaching of languages, and the university is also talking about restoring departmental status to linguistics.

Comer is getting good reviews from faculty members. “Stan developed a top-flight faculty and got UIC on the map,” says Lennard J.Davis, a leading figure in disability studies who was recruited by Fish. “Chris is going to consolidate those gains and fill in the gaps in faculty, particularly in the area of younger, junior faculty who might have gone below the radar under the Fish hiring bonanza.”

Comparing the two, Davis says: “Chris is logical, organized, and methodical. Stan is flamboyant and someone who shoots from the hip. His luck is that his shot very often lands in the right spot and everyone just happens to be gathered there at the moment to notice. Chris is the kind of person who will aim carefully and not necessarily before an audience.”

Not surprisingly, Comer admits that everyone wants him to talk about what it’s like to succeed Fish, and what it was like to work with Fish, whom Comer calls “a good friend.” (Comer was senior associate dean, focused largely on budget issues, for two years before moving up in August.)

“People expect there to be amazing stories to tell, and I guess if hadn’t worked here, I would expect that too,” he says. What people don’t realize, he says, is that even if deans get attention for whom they hire or pronouncements on this and that, they face a lot of tasks that are more important than they are sexy. “The day to day running of the college is not terribly different,” he says.

— Scott Jaschik

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