As you may know, I have been working since July 9 to identify an acting Provost and Vice Chancellor to replace Lane Earns, who was tapped by UW System President Kevin Reilly to serve as interim Chancellor at UW-Parkside while a search is conducted there to find a successor to Chancellor John P. Keating.
During the past week I consulted with the UW Oshkosh shared governance leadership team — the UPLAN Council (composed of officers of the Faculty Senate, the Oshkosh Student Association, the Senate of Academic Staff and the Classified Staff Advisory Council), the Chancellor’s Staff and the Provost’s Staff — to obtain its advice and counsel.
I am very pleased to announce today that Alan Hartman, Dean of the College of Business, has accepted the offer to serve as interim Provost and Vice Chancellor. Al will serve in this new role beginning August 24 until Provost Earns is scheduled to return to campus on or before June 1, 2009.
I want to take the opportunity to thank everyone for providing me with advice and recommendations. I received excellent feedback from all campus governance and administrative groups as well as from individual members of our campus community. The names of more than a dozen individuals were brought to my attention.
We are fortunate to have several people who are willing and more than able to provide leadership as the UW Oshkosh interim Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs. Al’s considerable skills and abilities make him an ideal candidate to assume this most challenging role. His talents and insights have been extremely beneficial to furthering the progress we have made on our University’s strategic and operational planning process, and his leadership skills in academic affairs are highly respected by faculty, staff, students and members of the local and regional community.
I have asked Al to initiate a process that will result in a recommendation for an interim Dean of the College of Business.
Richard H. Wells
Chancellor
Related stories: