Ithaca College has been receiving help in its dean search for the School of Health Sciences and Human Performance by the executive search firm, WittKieffer. The search firm hosted a listening session Sept. 19 to inform their consultants in the search, Sandra Chu and Sarah Seavey, of what the campus community is looking for in a new dean.
Previously, the dean for the School of HSHP was Linda Petrosino. Petrosino held the position for 11 years up until her retirement at the end of the 2022–23 academic year. The current interim dean is Christina Moylan, who worked for three years as associate dean in the School for HSHP and was also the college’s director of public health emergency preparedness from 2020–21.
The executive search firm retained for helping to find candidates, WittKiefer, has been working for 50 years to advise and search for leadership candidates. WittKiefer specializes in searches for candidates related to healthcare, science and education.
To start off the listening session, Chu introduced herself and Seavey as WittKiefer consultants who are supporting the search. Chu has over 20 years of experience in leadership development, project and relationship management and executive recruiting. According to her WittKiefer profile, Seavey has had a career in career counseling and professional development, which she uses to connect with candidates on a more personal level.
“We do not choose your candidate,” Chu said. “We are partners in the search. We always like to hear about things that you value in your experience … so we can let the candidates know how wonderful the place they are going to is.”
Chris Hummel, clinical professor and chair in the Department of Exercise Science and Athletic Training, and Kari Brossard Stoos, associate professor and associate chair in the Department of Health Sciences and Public Health, are co-chairs of the HSHP Dean Search Committee and were also present in the session. Hummel and Stoos were two of 12 attendees, none of whom were students.
The questions WittKiefer posed to the listening session were: What are the most important agenda items for the next dean, what are the ideal qualifications and qualities you would like to see in the next dean, and what do you see as the most distinctive aspects of Ithaca College and the school?
Amy Rominger, associate professor in the Department of Speech Language and Pathology, said it is important to her that the new dean would ensure all of the school’s clinical spaces were up to date and modern.
Rominger said the college had to be “able to compete with neighboring programs.”
Amy Frith, associate professor in the Department of Health Sciences and Public Health, said the college is a place where people can “practice in the community under supervision and that has, since COVID, kind of declined.”
Looking forward, she said she wants direction from the dean’s office at HSHP to help support that kind of community engagement. She said the college has a history of offering students hands-on opportunities that will give them experience in their career path.
“We are very well known for that, it goes into our brag rights,” Frith said.
Laura Kuo, a health sciences librarian at the college, said the dean’s office should give support to develop external partnerships with other organizations on campus. She wants there to be an awareness of the resources that can support the research.
The School of HSHP has been awarded $1.21 million in National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation grants in the last three years and has an average student pass rate on professional certification exams of 95%.
“There’s an opportunity here, let’s get someone who’s energetic,” Frith said.
“Someone who has skills … in being able to listen and pull together people … with faculty members with really big egos and agendas. … Someone who is able to navigate that.”
