During the next three weeks, USF will be hosting the top four Provost candidates for a tour of the campus. The committee that is helping USF President Judy Genshaft narrowed the list of eight during the winter break.

Honors College Dean and committee chairman Stuart Silverman said he and the committee felt that the four candidates chosen stood out from the other applicants.

“It was a unanimous thought among the committee members that these individuals were the best choices,” Silverman said.

The four candidates that will be taking a campus tour starting today are: Renu Khator, former dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and interim-provost for USF; Anthony Garro of Lehman College of the City University of New York; Stephen Lehmkuhle of the University of Missouri system; and Laura Lindsay of Louisiana State University.

More than 65 applicants were being considered for the position, Silverman said, and on Oct. 29, the committee settled on eight candidates with whom the committee conducted telephone interviews before narrowing the field to four.

“The committee and I called their various references and then I called them to invite them to take a tour of the campus,” Silverman said.

The provost search committee has not ranked the remaining candidates, Silverman said, because they have to report objectively to the president.

The candidates will be meeting with the committee, university professors, administrators, Student Government, Faculty Senate executive committee and staff while touring the campus.

Silverman said once each candidate had toured USF, the committee would reconvene by the end of the month to submit a report to Genshaft. The report will include evaluation forms from attendees of the meetings with the candidates and information the committee has received about the candidates. Again, the committee will not rank their recommendations, Silverman said. It will then be up to the president to make the final decision of hiring one, seeing one or two more candidates again or seeking new candidates, Silverman said.

Khator’s position as interim provost does not necessarily give her an advantage over the other candidates, Silverman said.

“For some people, being in that position before works to their advantage and other times it works to their disadvantage because they have been making decisions that some may or may not like,” Silverman said. “One would have to get inside the president’s mind because she makes the decision and thinks what she thinks.”

For more information on the candidates visit the president’s homepage at http://www.usf.edu/president/index.html .