Search committee for the new UC Merced Chancellor is formed

On August 31st Chancellor Carol Tomlinson-Keasey will step down, and return to her academic pursuits in the Social and Cognitive Sciences department. It will be interesting to see in what capacity. For example, will she be recruiting graduate students to work with her? The Sun-Star wrote that she will be on a 1-year academic leave, however, the UC Merced site wrote that she will be returning to teaching and scholarship although it did not state when that would be.

The news today in the Merced Sun-Star and also on the UC Merced news and events site is that the UC President Robert Dynes has formed the search committee for the new Chancellor. The 14 member committee will meet at some point in the next two weeks, and there will be a public announcement. This meeting will be an informal dinner where the members get to meet one another. Of the three UC Merced faculty selected, Dunya Ramicova, department of social sciences, humanities and arts is our closest contact. A second alternative contact might be, Gyami Shrestha, who is our Graduate Students Association representative. Since the decision on the new Chancellor will be made by the end of July, we need to contact our representatives with any of our wishes or concerns as soon as possible. It might even be better if we draft a formal letter together to send to one or both of these individuals. If anyone has an opinion about the search for then new Chancellor, and does not want to comment publicly on the blog, then please email me individually.