Susan Poser a leading candidate to become senior vice chancellor

Susan Poser, the associate to the chancellor of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, was in the hot seat last night at an open forum as part of the effort to place a senior vice chancellor for academic affairs.

Poser fielded questions from the audience of about 150 UNL students, faculty and administration about her visions and plans if she were chosen for the position.

The senior vice chancellor for academic affairs acts as the "team leader of the deans," who are the leaders of their departments, said Alan Tomkins, director of the UNL Public Policy Center.

"Senior vice chancellor (of academic affairs) is like the chief operating officer," Tomkins said.

Barbara Couture will leave the spot open when she begins her new job as president of New Mexico State University on Jan. 1, and in an unorthodox move, Chancellor Harvey Perlman has elected Poser as a preferred candidate.

In addition to her job as associate to the chancellor, Poser is a full professor at UNL's Law College and the director of the Ethics Center.

If appointed senior vice chancellor for academic affairs, which Perlman is expected to decide by the end of next week, Poser said she will bring "skill, independence and the utmost energy and enthusiasm."

In the hour-long question-and-answer session, concerns ranged from boosting student and faculty diversity, determining promotions and tenure, doling out budget cuts and searching for the new leaders of three dean-less UNL colleges.

A few people in the audience questioned how in-tune Poser would be with faculty and student issues, coming from an administrative position. She answered with an overview of her experience with both, as a professor and participant with the Achievement-Centered General Education Program, and added that she is more pro-faculty than many might expect given the process that could get her to that position.

That process has been spurred by Perlman's suggestion, calling Poser "the right person at the right time" in an e-mail to colleagues and the urgency to fill Couture's spot before she leaves later this month. Poser called it the "elephant in the room."

"If I were an active faculty member and sitting in your position right now, I would have a lot of the same questions you do," she said.

Many of those questions centered around the budget – specifically the types of cuts faculty should expect – and whether Poser had enough grasp of UNL's various departments to be the "team leader."

"I think I could be very good in the position," Poser said. "But it's not up to me."

andreavasquez@dailynebraskan.com