State AAUP will look at those as well.Swart's schedule while visiting Ball State also includes meetings and interviews with various members of the Ball State community, O'Neal Smitherman, chair of the search committee and vice president for information technology, said."The candidates will all meet with, of course, all the college deans, directors, senior administrators, representatives for University Council, which includes representatives from the student side of University Council," Smitherman said. "[Candidates] have a chance to all meet with community leaders."During the interviews and forum, candidates are asked an array of questions, he said."There are all sorts of questions with regard to what their experiences have been in the areas that are relevant in the provost search," Smitherman said.To give an example, he said people tend to ask the candidates about difficult situations they have been in and how they resolved the conflict. People also ask if the candidates can give examples of situations and outcomes that they are proud of.Smitherman said the forums and interviews give the candidates a chance to respond to the concerns faculty, staff and students have expressed.Questions concerning Swart's disputed hiring practices could be asked during the open forum, he said."Those are the kinds of things that people want to be able to hear Dr. Swart respond to, " Smitherman said. "Anytime anyone asks a question, the person being asked has a choice how they respond. My impression is that Dr. Swart will want to respond openly about that."Student Government Association President Steve Geraci said that students should attend the open forum and encouraged them to ask Swart difficult questions."I think it's important for students to pay attention and be aware of the administrative changes that are happening at their school," Geraci said. "[Candidates] need to be accountable not only to the administration and faculty but the students as well."Buck agreed the people who come to the forums play and important role in the search process by providing feedback."This is an important decision not only for faculty but for students as well," Buck said. "Whatever feedback that is provided is listened to."Geraci said although he didn't know much about Swart, he has faith in the committee and Ball State's search process."I think it's important to kind of trust in this search process and really come prepared to the open forum," Geraci said. "I would advise caution and participation in the process, and you can't write someone off before they've had a chance to participate in the process we've created."Senior and search committee member Meghan Newlund said she thought more should have been done to inform the students of the public forums."I think there will be good representation from student government because they were able to announce it, but ... it's been not very well publicized. It's hard to reach out to the students," she said.Marilyn Buck, associate dean of the College of Applied Sciences and Technology and member of the provost search committee, said the committee has already addressed some concerns raised about Swart."The questions that have been raised about [applicants] were asked about in our process of reviewing all candidates," Buck said.After researching Swart's background and speaking with references, committee members still felt Swart was a suitable provost candidate."I really have no concerns about it," Newlund said. "The three candidates coming to campus are very strong candidates."Smitherman said the committee did reference checks on the candidates they chose to bring to campus for interviews."At that point, the committee was divided up into groups, and they served as reference checks for each person. They then began to call and follow up on all the references that were listed and given by the candidates," Smitherman said.He said the committees also called people the candidate's knew who they did not list as references."Then also, just as an aside, a fairly comprehensive Internet review of things that have been published that were available on the Internet were referenced and followed up on," Smitherman said.An open forum will be held Sept. 20 at 8:30 a.m. for provost candidate Elliot Pood, dean of the College of Arts and Letters at the University of Southern Mississippi.An open forum will be held on Sept. 28 at 9:30 a.m. for provost candidate Andrew Bodman, provost and vice president of academic affairs at Western Washington University.
"It was pretty unanimous from the search committee that these were our top three choices," Newlund said. "They really stood out from day one and all of them are really qualified for the position."
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