President Jo Ann Gora said she tapped Deborah Balogh to temporarily fill the university's second-highest ranking administrative seat because Balogh would have the smallest learning curve.
"I picked Deb - in consultation with Provost Beverley Pitts - because I felt that Deb had the strongest background," Gora said. "She's already worked very closely with Bev."
Gora announced Friday in an e-mail to faculty and staff that Balogh, associate provost and dean of the Graduate School, will serve as interim provost beginning June 1, and Frank Sabatine, dean of the School of Extended Education, will serve as acting associate provost.
"Our new president is very action-oriented," Sabatine said. "She does her homework, but then when she needs to make a decision, she makes it quickly."
Gora also named the members of the provost search committee and said that she decided to move forward with the provost search, instead of waiting until the fall semester.
"As I thought about it," she said, "I thought there was really no reason to delay. Why wait? We could start the search now and ideally have somebody in place in the fall."
Provost Beverley Pitts, who will leave Ball State June 30 to start her five-year contract as president at the University of Indianapolis, said she will help make the transition as smooth as possible.
"I'm extremely supportive, and I think it's a wonderful selection," Pitts, who hired Balogh as associate provost in 1999, said. "She's a very good manager. She's an outstanding scholar and faculty member, and she cares very much about the academic quality of the university."
Pitts said her goal is to give Balogh the necessary background and information that she needs, such as helping the deans layout their annual budgets.
Balogh, who came to Ball State in 1981 as an assistant professor of psychology, said her focus as interim provost is to help keep the university's academic affairs on course.
"I want to keep our house in good order," she said. "Dr. Pitts is leaving the house that way. I want to keep the academic affairs' momentum moving. We don't want to lose any ground."
Sabatine said he plans to meet with Balogh several times in the coming weeks to discuss his duties as acting associate provost, while preparing his associate dean, Joanna Wallace, for any changes.
"The university is not going to have a dip in leadership because nothing will be sitting on a shelf not being addressed," Pitts said. "I don't think anyone needs to worry."
Balogh said as interim provost she plans to help the deans with following Gora's vision that she outlined during her inauguration Tuesday. Gora's vision for the university includes increasing Ball State's national visibility through higher academic standards and higher rankings.
"The best thing I can do is help the deans plan for the ways in which they would like to respond to the president's vision," Balogh said. "The president's vision is very clear. We want to capitalize on our strengths. I want to help the deans strategize in a way that's consistent with the president's vision."
To help carry out her vision, Gora said she met with the search committee Friday to discuss the qualities she wants in a provost.
"I told the committee I'm looking for an individual who has a solid academic background in teaching and research," she said, "and demonstrates creative and entrepreneurial talents in administration."
O'Neal Smitherman, vice president of information technology and provost search committee chairman, said the committee used Gora's recommendations to create a job advertisement to run in the next issue of "The Chronicle of Higher Education."
The committee -- one secretary, eight professors, three deans, two students, two directors, two department chairs and one associate vice president -- will not use a formal academic search firm during the process, Smitherman said.
In addition to national advertising, committee members will ask deans, department chairs and faculty members to recommend both on- and off-campus provost candidates.
The committee will create a Web page on Ball State's Web site in the next week that will detail the job description and application process, Smitherman said.
Gora said the committee will continue working through the summer with the goal to have finalists on campus by the first few weeks of the fall semester.
"I believe we can meet the fall deadline," Smitherman said. "We believe we can attract a good pool of candidates. We're literally asking the entire community to solicit, and we believe our faculty and staff can help get the right people here. This is a great opportunity for the right person."
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