After half a year as interim dean of the School of Information Studies, Elizabeth Liddy knows what she wants to do if granted the position full time.

Liddy said in an e-mail she hopes to affect local and global communities of users by ‘expanding human capabilities through information’ and raising the research profile of the iSchool, if she is appointed.

‘I have a particular interest in developing model curriculum here that could then be shared with other iSchools,’ Liddy said.

Liddy is one of three candidates for the position of dean at the iSchool. Richard Welke from the University of Georgia and Thomas Finholt from the University of Michigan are the other two final candidates for the role.

Final decisions regarding the open position will be made throughout the next few weeks by a search committee lead by Dr. Mitchell Wallerstein of the Maxwell School at Syracuse University. Their recommendations will then be given to Provost Eric Spina for a final decision.

Finholt declined to comment for this article.

Four other SU colleges are conducting dean searches, including the College of Arts and Sciences, the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, L.C. Smith College of Engineering and Computer Science and the College of Visual and Performing Arts.

Newhouse and the iSchool have announced finalists in the past month.

Each candidate for the iSchool position is diverse in prior experience.

Liddy has worked as a director of the Center for Natural Language Processing in the iSchool since 1999. She was named interim dean following the death of Dean Raymond von Dran’s on July 23 of last year.

Finholt is a research professor and associate dean for research and innovation at the School of Information at the University of Michigan.

Welke has spent years running businesses and building up academic programs. He said he understands in order for students to reach their full potential, faculty must do the same.

‘When it comes to the whole idea of Scholarship in Action, the iSchool was doing that before it even came about,’ Welke said in a telephone interview Friday. ‘We want to preserve and maintain that.’

Welke said a strong faculty is not only defined by its members’ experience and knowledge, but by their realization of their teaching potential. He hopes to increase the size and significance of the iSchool on a national level.

‘That was done because we created unique culture,’ Welke said.

ajpicker@syr.edu

Published on February 3, 2008 at 12:00 pm