Students and faculty question the integrity of the dean search for the College of Engineering and Engineering Technology.

Applications for a CEET dean are being reviewed presently by the search committee, but faculty members have concerns about the integrity of the committee’s composition.

“Our contention is that there’s a flavor on this committee,” said electrical engineering Professor Gerald Miller. “This is an engineering college. There’s three engineering departments, and it looks like there is a heavy persuasion that’s not engineering.”

Jule Scarborough, the committee’s co-chair and a technology professor, is responsible for all correspondence relating to the position. She declined to comment on the committee’s make-up.

The college’s four departments, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, industrial engineering and technology, each provided a representative for the search committee in addition to student representatives, staff members and members from outside the university community.

“There has been a formal letter sent by two departments to the provost asking him to re-address a couple issues and nothing has been done so far,” Miller said. The issues are inconsistencies between the position announcement and the college’s bylaws and the lack of engineering representation on the search committee.

Provost Ivan Legg said his involvement with the search is limited until the final stages.

“We want someone who has demonstrated good leadership in the past in another role,” Legg said. “Usually as a department chair or as an associate dean or in some other capacity. I don’t get involved until they narrow the list down to a few candidates.”

A group of engineering seniors responded anonymously to the Northern Star’s Feb. 7 story about the dean search: “The recruitment ad for a new dean was cleverly worded: it doesn’t say doctorate in engineering or technology. We wonder if the person writing this ad believed a degree in education, music or art would be acceptable.”

The letter went on to question the distribution of the committee as well as the qualifications of Promod Vohra, acting dean and search candidate, stating he is “actually a professor in the technology department without a Ph.D in engineering.” Vohra has a doctorate in instructional technology and is a registered professional engineer in Wisconsin but not Illinois, according to Vohra’s bio on his personal Web page.

CEET students’ opinions range from the anonymous letter’s authors to the signers of a petition to keep Dean Vohra in place as permanent dean.

Senior electrical engineering major Mandeep Dhillon signed the petition.

“He’s been here a long time. He’s a great guy,” Dhillon said. “He relates a lot to the students and his daughter also goes here, so he’s really interested in what students have to say.”

The CEET’s three engineering departments have different criteria for a new dean.

“We want a dean who, first of all, we think should have a Ph.D. in engineering,” said Scott Short, assistant professor of mechanical engineering. “Second of all, we think he should be a registered professional engineer.”

Vohra does not meet all their criteria because he does not have an engineering doctorate and he is a licensed engineer in Wisconsin, not Illinois.

According to the bylaws of the CEET, “a candidate must possess an earned doctorate in an appropriate field of study in engineering, or technology, to be employed at or promoted to the rank of full professor.”

The position announcement, which was posted online on the CEET homepage and at nine other printed and Internet locations, does not specify applicants must have a degree in engineering or technology. Its wording, “Earned doctorate … sufficient to qualify as professor with tenure in one of CEET’s academic departments or related area,” is slightly vague, Miller said.

Whether or not the dean search is conducted with a hidden agenda is unclear at this point, but the search’s alleged secrecy concerns faculty, staff and students, Miller said.