Progress on search for next dean of MIT Sloan
Dear members of the MIT Sloan community,
When I last wrote, I shared the excellent news that Professors Kate Kellogg and Andrew Lo are co-chairing the search advisory committee for MIT Sloan’s next dean. I write today with updates about the colleagues who will be joining them in this critical work and the ways in which they will engage MIT Sloan in the process.
Faculty committee and advisory groups
Kate, Andrew, and I have invited six faculty members to take part in the faculty committee that will be responsible for making candidate recommendations to me by the end of the fall term this year. I appreciate our colleagues’ willingness to lend their expertise and time to identifying leaders who are passionate about shaping MIT Sloan’s future, and who can build on the extraordinary progress made over the course of Dean Dave Schmittlein’s tenure.
To provide input into the committee’s work, we have established three advisory groups: for staff, students, and alumni. Each advisory group will be responsible for engaging with their respective constituencies and for reporting their findings to the faculty committee by mid-July.
The list of committee members and of the leaders and operational support for the Advisory Groups is at the close of this letter. Kate, Andrew, and I have asked the faculty committee and advisory groups to provide input into these four questions:
- What is working well at Sloan and should be preserved, and what can be improved?
- What should Sloan’s mission and vision be for the next decade?
- What are the qualities we should be looking for in our next dean to help us achieve that mission and vision?
- We are educating students for a rapidly changing economy and society. Sloan and MIT are inventing as much of that future as any other institution – what implications does this have for the search?
Next steps
Yesterday, we held the faculty committee’s kick-off meeting with Isaacson, Miller, the executive search firm I have engaged to help us identify strong candidates for dean. Guidance from the committee and advisory groups will form the basis of a position profile that will articulate the opportunities and challenges on the horizon for MIT Sloan as well as the leadership attributes we will seek in the next dean. The position profile will be used to help attract both internal and external candidates for the role.
As the committee and advisory groups continue their work, we welcome your input and ideas regarding the best candidates for this position at mitsloan-dean@mit.edu; you can also contact Kate, Andrew, or any of the committee members and advisory group leaders directly. Your input will be treated as confidential.
In closing, I want to thank all the committee and advisory group members for their service to MIT Sloan and to the broader Institute. I am certain that they will help me identify a dean who will work in partnership with the MIT Sloan community to envision the school’s next exciting, impactful chapter.
Sincerely,
Cynthia Barnhart
Provost
Committee members
Vivek Farias (Management Science)
Robert Gibbons (Economics, Finance, and Accounting/Behavioral and Policy Sciences)
Michelle Hanlon (Economics, Finance, and Accounting)
John Horton (Management Science)
Yasheng Huang (Behavioral and Policy Sciences)
Namrata Kala (Economics, Finance, and Accounting)
Kate Kellogg, co-chair (Behavioral and Policy Sciences)
Andrew Lo, co-chair (Economics, Finance, and Accounting)
Advisory group leadership and support
Stephen DeFalco (Alumni Advisory Group Chair)
Kathy Hawkes (Staff Advisory Group Chair)
Becca Souza (Student Advisory Group Operational Support)