Tim Tai, Senior Photographer

The Search Advisory Committee for the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences is looking for a successor for FAS Dean Tamar Gendler, who will step down on Dec. 31 after completing her second term in the role. 

Meanwhile, Gendler is preparing a situational assessment of the FAS to lay the groundwork for a strategic planning process that her successor will lead shortly after assuming the role of FAS dean. 

“A strategic planning process is a tremendous opportunity for our community to imagine the next decade of the FAS, to articulate ambitions, and to identify the steps that we can take, together, to achieve those ambitions,” Gendler wrote in an email to FAS faculty and staff on Oct. 9.

Information gathering for the successor search

The Search Advisory Committee, chaired by former Yale College Dean Marvin Chun, includes 12 other members from different departments. It was announced in an email from University President Maurie McInnis and Provost Scott Strobel on Sept. 30.

The committee is currently gathering community input, interviewing key stakeholders and accepting nominations and suggestions for the position through an online form. During the information-gathering phase, the committee meets with faculty and staff, including department chairs, members of the FAS-SEAS Senate and staff members in the FAS Dean’s Office, per Chun.

While Gendler was interviewed by the committee once and offered her recommendations for qualities in her successor, she told the News that she plays no other role in the search. 

“The honest way to run a search is to have me totally out of it,” Gendler said. “I, at the outset, gave them a list of things that I thought would be important in my successor. But beyond that, it’s really the committee’s job to come up with a list of nominees and the president’s and provost’s to select.”

Chun explained that the committee is currently working to identify and recommend “a slate of unranked candidates” to the president and provost, narrowing down nominations to less than ten candidates. 

From this pool, McInnis and Strobel will choose finalists, whom the committee will interview. Based on input from the Search Advisory Committee and “other leaders in the community,” McInnis and Strobel will have the ultimate say in selecting the next FAS dean, per Chun.

While Chun said that the list of candidates is confidential, he added that the committee considers only current Yale faculty members.

“Given other factors about the University, it would make more sense to choose as my successor somebody who knows the campus very well,” Gendler said. “That is, somebody who either is currently or was recently on the faculty. Because we have a new president and because [the transition] is happening mid-year, it will be much smoother and easier if my successor has administrative experience already.”

The state of the FAS

In her email to FAS faculty and staff, Gendler likened the situational assessment to both “a State of the Union address and a file cabinet filled with documents and data.”

To create the situational assessment, Gendler is currently gathering information from sources such as the Office of Institutional Research and departmental records, at times in collaboration with the three divisional deans who oversee the humanities, social sciences and sciences. 

“We’re analyzing various characteristics that we didn’t previously have information about,” Gendler told the News. “That is, how many faculty do we have working on American and European areas in history or other humanities disciplines versus how many do we have working in areas outside of Europe and America? How many of our scientists are doing bench-based research? How many of our scientists are doing theoretical research? I’m trying to move a level up in sophistication.”

Gendler told the News that she plans to collect most of the data by Thanksgiving and will present the data to the Yale Corporation in mid-December, before the start of her successor’s term.

Staff members in the FAS Dean’s Office also are preparing for the leadership transition by prepping briefing documents to smooth the transition for a successor, Alexandra Apolloni, assistant dean for faculty development and outreach, said.

According to Apolloni, the briefing document will include descriptions of the FAS dean’s everyday responsibilities, short-term goals and various office processes. Apolloni also expects that staff members will be able to provide continuity and operational perspectives for the next dean.

From one FAS dean to the next

Gendler hopes that her successor will build upon her close collaboration with other administrators in Yale’s decanal structure, including the dean of the Graduate School, the dean of Yale College and the dean of Engineering and Applied Science. Coordination between these institutional structures “is really, really crucial,” she said.

Prior to assuming her role as the inaugural FAS dean, Gendler was part of the Ad Hoc Committee on Decanal Structures, which created the FAS dean position and recommended a three-dean model that would more effectively govern matters of academics, faculty and budget in conjunction with the Provost’s Office.

In 2014, Gendler oversaw the establishment of the divisional deans, who lead the long-term strategic planning of the humanities, social sciences and sciences. Gendler expressed hope that her successor will facilitate more connections between the divisional deans and the Yale College committees that oversee teaching, majors and advising.

When asked about her thoughts on her successor potentially departing from her policies or approach to governance, Gendler expressed trust in her successor’s ability to promote the University’s mission in accordance with changing circumstances.

Referencing her own experiences with instituting teaching and research policies during the COVID-19 pandemic, Gendler said that unforeseen developments such as major political changes or geopolitical realignments may require her successor to take actions that differ greatly from the status quo.

“My successor may need to think about doing things that I haven’t had to think about, but I assume they’re going to do them with the goal of promoting the research and teaching enterprise, even if the execution of it looks very, very different,” Gendler said.

The Search Advisory Committee for the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences will hold a virtual listening session for FAS faculty and staff on Friday, Oct. 25.

YOLANDA WANG
Yolanda Wang covers Faculty and Academics as well as Endowment, Finances and Donations. Originally from Buffalo, NY, she is a junior in Davenport College majoring in political science.