School of Foreign Service Dean Robert L. Gallucci said he has decided to remain at Georgetown after unsuccessfully pursuing the presidency of Pennsylvania’s Lafayette College during the college’s months-long search last year for a new top administrator.
The New Jersey Express-Times reported last month that Gallucci was one of two finalists being considered for Lafayette’s presidency. The other candidate, Daniel H. Weiss of Johns Hopkins University, was selected as the college’s new president in December.
“Briefly, I had for some time thought that I would enjoy the challenge presented by the presidency of a good, small college,” Gallucci said. “Lafayette is that. However, when the opportunity presented itself, and my wife and I considered the trade-offs, we decided that [the] SFS, Georgetown University and Washington, D.C., are where we want to be, where we belong.”
Gallucci said he had no plans to seek another position outside Georgetown.
Roger Clow, director of college communications at Lafayette, said that the college’s presidential search committee, formally inaugurated in March of last year, had examined around 250 potential candidates for the position. Those prospects were eventually narrowed to 15 well-qualified individuals who participated in interviews with Lafayette’s search committee, he said.
Citing privacy concerns, however, Clow said that he could not confirm that Gallucci had been one of the two finalists for the position, or even that the SFS dean had been considered at all.
“It’s a closed process, and it would be inappropriate to talk about” the people involved, Clow said.
Gallucci’s bid for Lafayette’s top position follows the departure of other prominent Georgetown professors in the past year. G. John Ikenberry, a celebrated international relations scholar, left the Hilltop for Princeton University last July, and distinguished government professor Victor Cha requested a leave of absence last month to serve on the National Security Council during President Bush’s second term.
University spokeswoman Julie Bataille praised Gallucci’s work at Georgetown and said administrators remain committed to hiring and retaining top-caliber faculty.
“Georgetown’s top financial priority and largest expense is recruiting and retaining
the very best faculty,” Bataille said, citing the recent hiring of new faculty members such as former CIA director George Tenet and former Spanish president Jose Maria Aznar. “Of course Georgetown is disappointed when a distinguished scholar or administrator makes a decision to leave, but these are personnel matters that often come after a great deal of thought on behalf of each individual.”
Bataille also said that leaves of absence, such as that taken by Victor Cha, are useful for faculty to gain real-world experience that they can then impart to students.
“These kinds of arrangements are common and good for the faculty member, his/her students, research and the policy process,” she said. “This actually represents one of the most unique aspects of some faculty – that they blend a practical perspective with scholarly expertise – something Georgetown students are uniquely able to benefit from in the classroom.”
