The chancellor search committee released the name of the fourth and final candidate for UAF chancellor Friday, Apr. 30. According to the timeline posted on the committee's website, the new chancellor should be appointed by June. Following is the information the Sun Star was able to gather about each of the candidates. Students can get more information  and submit comments to the search committee at www.uaf.edu/chancellor/search.

Stephen G. Wells

Dr. Stephen G. Wells currently serves as president of the University of Nevada's Desert Research Institute, a non-profit research campus conducting $27 million of environmental research each year.  The Institute houses about 450 faculty, research scientists, and support staff.  Despite being a research arm of the University and Community College System of Nevada, the institute does not award degrees nor does it have an undergraduate program.  Wells said the institute has about 60 graduate students working on projects with the research scientists.

Prior to joining the Desert Institute in 1995, Wells was a professor of geomorphology at the University of California, Riverside.  Before that, he served as a geology professor at the University of New Mexico.

Wells received his bachelor's in geology from the Indiana University and his master's and a doctorate in geology from the University of Cincinnati.

Needless to say, Wells is a scientist, though he doesn't feel his background as a research scientist will in any way bias him against academia or the arts here at UAF.

"All ships rise, all ships are successful, and they're all fundamentally interrelated," Wells told KUAC's Robert Hannon during an April 14th interview on Alaska Edition.

Wells says he understands well the UAF's financial dilemmas.  He told Hannon he gained invaluable experience working at the Desert Research Institute, which, like UAF, was "mandated but not fully funded, and it required us to be creative about providing the resources.  So you look outside your system," soliciting funds from corporations and other outside sponsors interested in investing in higher education.

This outside financial support, Wells said, will help ensure that tuition doesn't skyrocket out of control:

"You have to be careful that you don't put that on the backs of the students to the point that you break them."

His plan includes vigorous efforts to garner community support, "You'll need to depend on everyone at sometime to support you when you want to move, you want to change, or you want to evolve the campus."

"I think the more one looks for business opportunities and partnerships and linkages and support, the better off this campus will be financially and the less burden that ultimately end up on students," Wells said.

Wells feels that UAF, as a top-notch research university, should have no problem recruiting new students and faculty interested in an exceptional education:

"You attract students by the reputation, the integrity and the inspiration of the campus…If you have a campus which everyone feels is moving, it's exciting, it's dynamic, they want to be part of it."

Jay Noren

Currently, Dr. Jay Noren is the executive vice president, provost, and dean of the University of Nebraska's Graduate College, which comprises undergraduate, graduate and professional campuses in Lincoln, Omaha and Kearney and additional programs statewide.  He is responsible for the University's budget as well as the allocation of state appropriations, tuition revenues, and several research and foundation funds.

 Noren is a physician.  He received his master's of public health from Harvard.  He has held research and teaching positions at Harvard, University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of Nebraska, Texas A&M University, University of Minnesota, and the University of Washington.  He was a research scholar at the National Institute of Health Policy.

As a provost, Noren has seen first hand a university's financial problems and thinks the nation's universities need to take a cue from successful businesses.  In an April 28 interview on KUAC, he said there are certain aspects of the traditional business model that every university has to adopt.

"On the other hand," Noren said, "we are not just a business."

Noren does not see universities as merely selling an education to students.  "We're providing public service, we're engaged in research," he said.  "We need to be more, more, and more—and I say the emphatically—efficient because we are using the public's resources."

But that ruthless efficiently, Noren said, should not get in the way of free academic expression.  "The tradition of academic freedom is what makes institutions of higher education—universities—unique and serve a unique role in society."

He feels it is imperative that controversial issues be openly debated on campus.

Under Noren's watch, the University of Nebraska, like many Universities across the country, has seen rapidly rising tuition.  They made the difficult decision to raise tuition, he said, because the other option was to diminish the quality of education.

He knows such policies can be hard on students, especially those strapped for cash.  "Now we have to find financial aid so that those students who cannot afford to attend will have the support that's require," he said.

In his professional capacities, Noren has worked closely with faculty, not always successfully. 

In June 2003, Noren received a vote of no confidence from two separate faculty bodies at the Texas A&M University.

Noren said those resolutions came in response to some drastic changes the board of regents mandated but that his faculty wasn't ready for.

"I moved too fast," Noren said.  "You have to be careful about the timing of change.  Change may be totally appropriate, totally constructive, but it's got to go at the right pace."

Noren also said he works closely with students—all students, not just the 4 student regents he works with as the provost.  Even as an administrator, Noren said, he tries to teach a class every semester at the University of Nebraska.  At an open forum on Friday, he said that teaching allows him to get involved with more than just the student leadership and that he would continue the practice here at UAF.

A small group of students working at the University of Nebraska's student newspaper, however, did not even recognize Jay Noren's name, let alone have any interaction with him as professor or provost.

Noren feels he understands UAF's non-traditional organization of rural campuses and distance learning programs for small native communities.  He told the forum of faculty, students, and community members, that Nebraska has a similar setup involving Native Americans and other rural communities.

"In Nebraska," he said, "we feel that everyone ought to have access to higher education no matter how remote."

"We have to continue to work at enhancing, embellishing, growing the distance education approach."

Technology, he said, is making it easier to communicate at great distance, but it is more important to bridge cultural expanses. 

"You need to work as much as possible to be culturally appropriate," Noren said, emphasizing the importance of making a culturally friendly learning environment.

Lois Muir

Lois Muir has been the provost for the four University of Montana campuses since July 2000.  She also serves as the University's president for academic affairs.  Muir has served as associate dean at Kent State University and, before that, she was the dean of arts, humanities and social sciences and graduate dean at Kennesaw State University in Georgia.  She has also held a number of administrative positions at the University of Wisconsin, the University of South Dakota, and Indiana University.

Muir earned a doctorate in psychology from the State University of New York at Stony Brook and a master's in family and child development from the Auburn University and a bachelor's in psychology from the University of Texas.

Aaron Flint, the president of the Associated Students of the University of Montana, admires Muir for working her way through college even while raising her three children. 

It was these experiences early on in her education that led Muir to emphasize on developmental psychology and the unique psychology of women.  She has continued her research in these areas, studying changes in maternal attitudes and perceptions over time.

Flint also respects Muir for her tenacity in dealing with other administrators.  Flint said she often "stands up to the boys."

Not all of the students at the University of Montana share Flint's admiration.

The Kaimen, the University's student-run newspaper reported that many students are upset by Muir's unwavering stance on a controversial writing proficiency exam.  The exam, consisting of several essay questions and which is graded by the same group as the ACT, must be passed before graduation.

According to the Kaimen article, there might be between 30 to 50 seniors in jeopardy of not receiving their diplomas this spring because they have failed the exam.

Muir said the test was intended to prepare students to write coherently in a variety of different careers.

"In life, these foundational skills are going to be used in many arenas," Muir told the Kaimen.

This is not the first position Muir has applied for recently.  She also applied to California State University and for Illinois State University, vying both times for the President's position.

Adam Weinacker, the Kaimen's news editor, wrote a scathing editorial, gently chiding Muir for being "led away by carrots hanging from the sticks of other universities."

Weinacker was not immediately available for comment, but his editorial said it all:

"It's obvious you want to move on, so don't let the door hit you on the way out."

Muir's campus visit is scheduled for May 3 and 4.

Stephen B. Jones

Dr. Stephen B. Jones currently serves as the Vice Chancellor at North Carolina State University.  In that capacity, he oversees the extension, outreach, and distance and continuing education efforts for the research-driven land-grant institution.

He also oversees the separate 200-acre Centennial Campus, a self-described "technopolis."  The campus's website describes the "technopolis" as a complementary mixture of faculty, students, and research centers with industry and government counterparts.  It creates a unique environment where academia can freely mix with a blend of large, small, and entrepreneurial businesses.

Jones has served as director of the Alabama Cooperative Extension System at Auburn University.  Jones has also held teaching positions at the School of Forest Resources at Pennsylvania State University and the State University of New York College of Environmental Science in Syracuse. 

Jones earned a doctorate Resource Management and holds a bachelor's in forestry from the State University of New York—Syracuse.  He also holds an associate's degree in forestry from Maryland's Allegany Community College.

Before joining the ranks of academia, Jones worked for 12 years at Union Camp Corporation, an international paper and forest products company.

Jones is scheduled to visit UAF May 10 and 11.