Editor’s note: The following story is the conclusion of a two-part series on the vacant position for associate provost for academic programs. Monday’s Daily Egyptian profiled Walter Metz and Jim Allen. 

The position of associate provost for academic programs, which has been vacant for four years, is to be filled within the next few weeks.

The position’s primary responsibility is to assist the provost in the oversight and management of academic and degree programs on campus. The candidates are Walter Metz, professor and chair of the cinema and photography department; Jim Allen, history professor and director of office of assessment and program review; Deborah Tudor, associate professor and associate dean of mass communication and media arts; and Michael Molino, associate professor and chair of the English department.

University spokesman Rod Sievers said the seat has been vacant because the provost position continued to change, and the administration wanted to wait for stability in the office before another associate provost was sought out.

The associate provost for academic programs would assess every program at the university to make sure students get the most out of their degrees. He or she would deal with program changes, student complaints and report to the Illinois Board of Higher Education.

In an email to the Daily Egyptian, Provost John Nicklow said the seat was vacant because there were efforts to try to collapse the duties of the office into other positions.

“The fact is, however, it has left a gap,” Nicklow said in the email. “Quality assurance and strengthened assessment of our academic programs is too important of a task and requires dedicated attention.”

He said he plans to consider input from faculty, staff and students along with his own impressions of the candidates before he decides who will take office. Nicklow said he will also take advice from the search committee.

Tudor said she would like to hold the position because she has experience with program development, both at Southern Illinois University Carbondale and her previous job at DePaul University.

She said she helped write a successful digital cinema program at DePaul. There was a media arts course in the liberal arts department, she said, and the digital arts department had a program in animation. The two departments wanted to create a course that offered features from both classes, Tudor said.

“(We) pulled a committee together from both of those colleges and talked about what learning goals and objectives we had in common and how we could compliment each other,” she said. “Out of that, we created a digital cinema program. So, that kind of program discussion in assessment and review is something we could do as well.”

Tudor said one goal she would have for the office would be to provide assistance to deans, chairs and directors on goals they have set for themselves. She said she would put them in touch with any resources available and hopes to work as an external mediator for conflicts within departments.

One reason Tudor said she thinks she stands out from other candidates is because she has a slightly different point of view.

“I have a really holistic and global notion of program review and assessment, and I like to sort of break categories and blur boundaries,” she said.

Tudor said while the Illinois Board of Higher Education and the Higher Learning Commission require reports about what the university has done, she would rather have the reports be a demonstration of what the university can do.

“This goes back to maybe we haven’t done a good job of telling people why we’re valuable, and I truly think we are,” she said.

Tudor said she enjoys doing this kind of work and believes she could help the university meet its mission goals.

According to his faculty profile page on the university’s website, Molino is a specialist in modern British Literature and has been at SIU for 12 years. He wrote the book, “Questioning Tradition, Language, and Myth: The Poetry of Seamus Heaney,” in 1994. His articles have appeared in “The Journal of Irish Literature,” “College English,” “Modern Philology” and others as well.

Molino was not available for comment after the Daily Egyptian made several attempts to contact him Friday and Monday through emails and phone messages.