Dean Philip S. Khoury of the School of Humanities and Social Science, will chair an advisory group appointed by Provost Mark S. Wrighton to help him in selecting the next associate provost for the arts.
Professor Ellen Harris, MIT's first provost for the arts, announced in December that she will step down next summer after six years in the post to pursue a long-planned book about the music of George Frideric Handel. After her leave to write the Handel biography she plans to return full-time to the faculty in the Music And Theater Arts Program where she is professor of music.
Professor Wrighton said the person selected to succeed Professor Harris will be expected to build on her accomplishments and on her vision for the arts at MIT.
The advisory group will include faculty, students, staff and members of the Council for the Arts. The group is expected to be at work by mid-February. The provost's goal is to appoint a successor who will take over at the start of the 1995-96 academic year, he said.
In addition to Dean Khoury, members of the advisory group are:
Professor Anita Desai, an internationally acclaimed novelist, of the Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies.
Institute Professor and Nobel Laureate Jerome I. Friedman of physics.
Professor John H. Harbison, the noted composer, of music and theater arts.
Dean William J. Mitchell of the School of Architecture and Planning.
Professor Woodie C. Flowers of mechanical engineering.
Katherine G. Kline, director of the List Visual Arts Center.
Students in the group are Ivana Komarcevic, an undergraduate in mathematics and theater arts, and Suguru Ishizaki, a PhD candidate in media arts and sciences.
Consulting members to the committee are Professor A.R. (Pete) Gurney, the internationally recognized playwright, of literature; John W. Kunstader '49, chairman of MIT's Council for the Arts, and Martin N. Rosen '62, vice-chairman of the council.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on February 1, 1995.
