Interim provost selection and selection process praised by faculty

Acting President Harold Cunningham wasted no time in getting to work last week, announcing Thursday afternoon the appointment of Dr. Elizabeth Davis as interim provost.

Davis replaces outgoing provost Randall O’Brien, whose last day at Baylor was August 1; O’Brien will soon begin transitioning into his new role as president at Carson-Newman College, a small Baptist school in Tennessee. The popular O’Brien spent 17 years at Baylor as a professor and administrator before accepting the job at Carson-Newman in early July.

Early returns indicate Davis, Baylor’s vice provost for financial and academic administration since 2004 and a faculty member since 1992, is a popular choice to follow O’Brien as interim provost. Friday’s Waco Tribune-Herald included comments from Baylor Faculty Senate chairwoman Georgia Green and senior lecturer Lynn Tatum, immediate past president of the Texas Conference of the American Association of University Professors, praising both Davis’ selection and the process by which she was selected.

Tatum and Cunningham each noted the president’s seeking out of opinions from faculty and other university groups, with Cunningham calling Davis — a Baylor alum — “the consensus favorite everywhere.” As provost, Davis will essentially oversee the academic side of the University, including 11 schools and colleges and more than two dozen centers and institutes, while the administration begins the search for a permanent provost.

Sic ’em, Dr. Davis!