The search for a new dean of admissions has just stepped up.
Soon a narrowed down list of candidates will be brought onto campus.
These candidates will meet with members of Bowdoin admissions, as well as heads of other departments that the Office of Admissions deals with. However, most students and faculty on campus will never meet the candidates.
According to Vice President for Planning and Institutional Advancement Scott Meiklejohn, the identities of the candidates are being kept secret for their own sake.
"All candidates come outside of any risk of being seen by people they know at Bowdoin," Meiklejohn said. The reason for this is apparently so that the colleges that the respective candidates are working at will not know that they are job hunting.
If a candidate's college discovered his application, and he did not get the job, it would make his situation difficult.
For this reason, the visits of the finalists will be confined to a few group conversations, all organized by the search committee headed by President Barry Mills, with only admissions staff and other important officials.
This strategy, however, was noticeably absent when candidates for the dean of academic affairs were visiting.
"The campus visits for academic dean [candidates] were a lot more open for faculty," Meiklejohn said. The reason for this openness, according to the Office of the President, was the large number of programs that the dean of academic affairs supervises.
The former Dean of Admissions Jim Miller left in August to return to his alma mater, Brown University.
The search for the new dean of admissions started in mid-September. Associate Professor of Chemistry Rick Broene, a member of the search committee, believes the search has been going "quite well."
The search committee has been using Isaacson Miller, a search firm based in Boston, as a resource to find some of the candidates.
The search committee created a position description and a list of characteristics it was looking for in a new dean of admissions, and then used both its own contacts and Isaacson Miller's to find possible candidates.
In December, the committee brought eight people to Portland to interview and narrow down the list. In Portland, the committee decided on the candidates that it would bring to campus.
In Mills's convocation welcome speech at the beginning of the year, one of the first items addressed by the president was prospect of a new dean of admissions.
"This time of transition in the leadership of our admissions office does not indicate nor will it result in a change in admissions policy for this college," Mills said.
Mills also said how satisfied the College is with its admissions department.
"We have been remarkably successful in recent years in bringing to Bowdoin students of the highest quality, with a myriad of talents, from all across America and the world," he said.
Meiklejohn reiterated the same point, saying that the search was "not about a big change of direction?both [the admissions and academic affairs] programs are going very well."
As to when Bowdoin will actually see the new dean of admissions take office, the committee is not anxious to announce a date or deadline.
According to Meiklejohn, "We'll make a decision when we're sure we've found the right person."