I always provide a written charge to search committees.  Clearly provided instructions to your committee will facilitate your work and achieve a work product, for me, which will match my expectations.  To this end, I provide the following charge to the search committee for the Director of the University of Louisville Autism Center. 

The Job Description

You are seeking a Director of the UofL Autism Center who will report to the Executive Vice President for Health Affairs (EVPHA) through the Deans of the School of Medicine and the College of Education and Human Development.  The chairs of Pediatrics and Psychiatry will participate in the operations and direction of the Center through meetings with the Deans and the Center Director.   You are seeking an academic leader who will fulfill the clinical, educational, and research missions of the Center.  Furthermore, the successful candidate must have proven leadership experience and possess strong managerial skills, along with the ability to work collaboratively with a broad range of constituents.  You must identify a Psychiatrist who is knowledgeable and respectful of all of the sub-disciplines within the field of autism.  The successful candidate will hold the Spafford Ackerly Endowed Chair in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. 

The mission of the Autism Center at the University of Louisville is to build academic and community partnerships that will expand clinical services, education and training, and develop an externally supported research agenda resulting in a premier autism spectrum disorders program.  It will offer children, parents, and primary care providers a single source for diagnosis, treatment, referral, and information.  The UofL Autism Center will become a resource for three key activities:

·         The Center will be a “one-stop” resource for parents with children with suspected autism to obtain evaluation, diagnosis, evidence-based interventions, and treatment referrals to relevant community based resources;

·         The Center will conduct multidisciplinary research regarding the causes of, prevention of, and interventions for autism; 

·         The Center will provide families with support and access to reliable information on autism and provide education and training for teachers and health care professionals.

The Center Director will provide leadership to the Center, its faculty, staff and programs while advancing the knowledge of effective therapies for autism and neurodevelopmental disorders. 

An essential skill for the new Center Director will be expertise in promoting and nurturing research, teaching, and clinical care.  While it would be desirable to identify an individual with a strong personal research agenda, at the very least you should identify a candidate who will understand how to support the research careers of others.

You will proceed with a national search because I feel it would be a disservice to the Center not to have a fulsome discussion about the Center’s future and to have a broadly cast net through a comprehensive search. 

In any economic undertaking, including the selection of a Center Director, you must consider the availability of resources.  In the medical school, we are concurrently conducting searches for the chairs of microbiology/immunology, orthopedic surgery, obstetrics-gynecology, pathology, urology, anatomy/neurosciences, and the Associate Dean for Medical Education.

Interviews

The committee should conduct a series of interviews with key stakeholders. I ask that you be certain to interview me, interim Dean Haselton, pertinent members of the departments of psychiatry (i.e., Bingham Child Guidance Center), pediatrics (STAR), and the College of Education (KATC), as well as appropriate individuals representing the individual advisory boards.  In my opinion, collegial courtesy dictates that any internal candidates are granted, at the least, a first-round interview. 

Advertising

To identify candidates I ask that an appropriate phone and mail campaign be undertaken.  In addition, you may elect to run appropriate electronic or print advertising for two to three months being mindful of the considerable expense and uncertain efficacy of print advertisements. 

The Process

• Allow six to twelve weeks to receive letters of nomination or applications with accompanying CVs.

• Check references.

• Conduct at least two rounds of interviews.   

• By March 1, 2011, and earlier if possible, please provide me with a list of three or four finalists, unranked.  Under no circumstances include anyone on this list whom the Committee would not feel comfortable being offered the job.

• The last meeting of the committee should be with Dean Haselton and me wherein members of the committee will have the opportunity to discuss the final list. 

My thanks to the group for being willing to serve. 

E. C. Halperin, MD, MA, FACR

Dean of the School of Medicine