tl20021014-000 "ml TOWEriiiiiib Baltimore's #1 College Paper - Published Twice-Weekly - www.thetowerlight.com Monday, 10/14/02 USM conference talks race, class 5 Center supports 'coming out' day Int'l musicians play at festival 11 Aerial dancing flys onto campus 11 Departments News Nation 5 7 Arts 11 Sound Bites 14 In A Theater Near You 16 Entertainment Briefs 18 Sports 24 Athlete of the Week 20 In This Corner 24 Classifieds 19 Opinion 2 Searching for place to impress $50K to be spent on interviewing process; departmental letters support open search Mike Morris The Towerlight During the past two weeks, Towson officials have been scouting locations to hold interviews with the University's top 10 presidential finalists, one of which will assume the post left vacant by Mark Perkins more than six months ago. Hotels, restaurants and clubs in Towson, Hunt Valley, the Inner Harbor and other � locations in Baltimore are currently being scruti-nized, said James Clements, chair of Towson's presidential search corn-mittee. Two staff members from the Office of the President were visiting hotels last Wednesday in the vicini-ty of Baltimore-Washington International Airport, located about 20 miles from campus in Linthicum. Interviews will not necessarily be off-campus, Clements said, hinting at the possibility of the Burkshire as long as the talks can be done confi-dentially. ""We want to put on the best show possible,"" Clements said of the interviews. ""The harbor is definitely the hot spot. It really shows what the region has to offer...Could you imagine sitting at a place like the Hyatt [Regency Baltimore], over-looking the harbor? You couldn't help but be impressed."" And impress is what the commit-tee aims to do. The group was allocated $150,000 in University funds, half Lisa Johnson/The Towerhght James Clements said he is still receiving applications to fill the vacancy left by Mark Perkins. Lisa Johnson The Towerhght Baltimore's Inner Harbor is the ""hot spot"" for conducting interviews with Towson's 10 presidential finalists according to James Clements, chair of TU's search committee. Above is a view from an elevator in the Hyatt Baltimore Regency overlooking the harbor, where Clements said a person ""couldn't help but be impressed."" of which will pay for their search firm, A.T. Kearney. About $25,000 has been spent on advertising for the position in eight. publications, including The Chronicle for Higher Education and The New York Times. The remaining $50,000 will allow Towson to pick up the tab for all expenses incurred by the 10 final-ists, including round-trip airfare, hotel accommodation, meals and transportation costs. Each finalist will be given access to a personal taxi. ""When you run a search it's not cheap. It's a shame because we just did one two years ago,"" Clements said referring to Perkins. He added that he will be as frugal as possible, but wants to find a location that will attract a ""very good leader."" All 25 committee members will be present for the lunch or dinner interviews. Officials will continue surveying locations this week so that in the near future they can arrange menus, book hotel rooms and confirm times for the inter-views, which will commence in approximately two months. Debate sparks letters Meanwhile, the political science and English department faculty are making public statements that the search should become open once the committee has selected three to five finalists from the 10 inter-viewed candidates. The English department has sent a letter strongly supporting an open search, while the political science department hopes their letter will be sent tomorrow after obtaining the signatures of all 14 full-time fac-ulty members in the department. One of those faculty members, Dr. Jack Fruchtman, said the funda-mental argument for having a closed search is that the University will lose its high profile applicants. He said this is a false argument because if a candidate is not willing to meet faculty and students then they should not be at Towson. ""Those who are interested in all of this want the search to be open, especially in light of what happened with Perkins,"" Fruchtman said. ""We don't want the finalists to have some abstract notion of the cam-pus."" Faculty in the English depart- See SEARCH, page 8 Today High 59 Low 42 Tuesday High 53 TRip . Low 50 '""'""' Wednesday High 62 Low 45 Thursday High 59 Low 41 Friday High 62 Low 44 "
