Rebecca Kohn, Elizabeth Sayrs and Robert Aguirre have been announced as finalists to become Elon University’s next provost and vice president for academic affairs, according to a Sept. 30 email from co-chairs of provost search committee Jason Husser and Janet Williams.
A provost is a chief academic officer in charge of the university’s academic and budgetary affairs. The provost is the position directly under the president of a university and deals with long term student planning.
Aswani Volety, former provost, left the university to become chancellor of University of North Carolina at Wilmington in May. Husser, professor of political science and policy studies and chair of Academic Council, and Williams, vice president for Finance and Administration, have been leading the 23-member search committee to replace him.
In the interim, Raghu Tadepalli, dean of the Martha and Spencer Love School of Business, has been serving as provost, and Tim Peeples, senior associate provost for faculty affairs, as vice president for academic affairs.
All three candidates will visit Elon next week to meet with different groups on campus and make presentations to help the university community understand how they would approach the position.
Rebecca Kohn, senior vice provost at Arcadia University, will speak Oct. 4. Elizabeth Sayrs, executive vice president and provost at Ohio University, will present Oct. 5. Robert Aguirre, dean of the College of Arts and Letters at James Madison University, will speak Oct. 6.
Each candidate will speak from 4 to 5 p.m. at McCoy Commons, Oaks 212, on their respective days. Each presentation will be followed by a question and answer session. Feedback to the committee will be given before the recommendation is given to university President Connie Book.
Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, falls on Oct. 5, and as such, a recording of each session and feedback form will be emailed to the campus community for anyone unable to attend in person, according to the co-chairs.
Aguirre and Sayrs were not available for comment and Kohn did not respond to Elon News Network’s request for comment.
In the email, Husser and Williams said the search committee looks forward to the community meeting the three finalists for the role.
“We are excited for all members of the university community to have the opportunity to hear from these candidates and to help inform the decisions to come about filling this very important position with the most qualified candidate,” Husser and Williams wrote. “Thank you for taking the time to participate in the process, and we look forward to hearing your feedback in the weeks to come.”