Blair Lord, vice president for academic affairs, told the Faculty Senate Tuesday he is close to choosing, but not close enough to name, the new deans of the College of Sciences and the Lumpkin College of Business and Applied Sciences.

On March 8, Lord received candidate evaluations from each search committee.

There is also currently a search for a dean of the College of Educational and Professional Studies, which brought its first candidate to campus for interviews on Monday.

Since receiving the recommendations, Lord said he has made some progress but needs to smooth out negotiations before he will be ready to reveal any names.

“I’m close on both,” he said, “but I don’t want to state any names until someone is signed. There are still things that could fall apart.”

Lord said he hopes to announce his decision within the next two weeks.

At the meeting, which was cut short due to interim President Lou Hencken’s State of the University Address, Bud Fischer, senate chair and biological sciences professor, reminded the senate to urge interested faculty to run for seats on the new Steering Committee for Faculty Development.

The committee is being established because of the senate’s request for the academic affairs office to create a committee designed to provide faculty with more opportunities to hone their skills and learn new teaching methods.

Fischer said the senate needed more volunteers in order to have an election.

Also, the senate discussed a request for the business affairs office to hold off on filling vacant positions until a new president is in place. Some senate members said it was unfair to hire new administrative positions when there are many vacant positions among faculty. However, the senate did not take a clear stance on the issue.

Concern arose after Jeff Cooley, vice president for business affairs, announced at the senate’s April 2 meeting that he hopes to hire an assistant vice president for business affairs and a director of business services/treasurer by the end of this fiscal year.

Cooley also said he hopes to replace Bill Witsman, associate vice president for information technology services, who retires on June 14.

The request to hold off on hiring the positions came from David Carpenter, senate member and English professor, who said Cooley’s wish was “arrogant and completely inappropriate giving the time.”

Senate member Luis Clay Mendez, foreign languages professor, said “we have to observe freezes as faculty, but the administration does not.”

Other senate members did not agree, saying that it is not the senate’s place to tell business affairs when they can and cannot replace vacancies.

“I don’t think we should be getting into a position where we’re telling the vice president for business affairs not to hire anybody,” said James Tidwell, senate member and journalism professor.

Senate Vice Chair Reed Benedict, associate professor of sociology and anthropology, agreed.

“I don’t think it was arrogant at all. He is only trying to fill two out of nine vacant positions,” Benedict said.