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SU Vice Chancellor and Provost Michele Wheatly recommends Maxwell dean search be suspended

Courtesy of Stephen Sartori

SU named Associate Dean David Van Slyke as the chair of the search committee in October and named 15 additional members in November.

By Michael Burke

Syracuse University Vice Chancellor and Provost Michele Wheatly has recommended to SU Chancellor Kent Syverud that the search for the next Maxwell School dean be suspended and the search committee discharged.

In an email to the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs community, Wheatly said she did not believe the search committee had found a candidate “who could engender strong support and generate great excitement about the School’s future.”

That conclusion was based on interactions with the search committee and the finalists, as well as feedback from the Maxwell community, Wheatly said.

James Steinberg stepped down as dean of the school following the end of the 2015-16 academic year. He served as dean since 2011 after serving as deputy secretary of state under Hillary Clinton.

Wheatly did not say in the email when a new search would begin. She also did not name an interim dean, but said she would have more information regarding interim leadership “very soon.”



SU named Associate Dean David Van Slyke as the chair of the search committee in October and named 15 additional members in November. Here are each of those members along with their titles at the time:

  • Carol Faulkner, professor of history
  • Madeleine Hamlin, graduate student studying geography
  • William Horrace, professor and chair of economics
  • Azra Hromadzic, assistant professor of anthropology
  • Thomas Moylan Keck, Michael O. Sawyer Chair of Constitutional Law and Politics and associate professor of political science
  • Steven Lux, director of the Executive Education Program in Maxwell
  • Howard Phanstiel, University Trustee
  • Karin Ruhlandt, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences
  • Rebecca Lynn Schewe, assistant professor of sociology
  • Amy Schwartz, professor of economics and public administration and international affairs and Daniel Patrick Moynihan Professor of Public Affairs
  • Aysha Seedat, Student Association president and senior public policy major
  • Richard Thompson, University Trustee
  • James Willie, member, Maxwell Advisory Board
  • Jamie Winders, associate professor, chair and O’Hanley Faculty Scholar of geography





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