The School of Medicine and Health Sciences got orders from GW's top leader this month to accelerate the search to fill its deanship, after nearly two years of temporary leadership.

University President Steven Knapp and Provost Steven Lerman directed the schools faculty executive committee to launch an expedited dean search to stabilize GWs most selective and richest school the first sign of movement in its stalled hunt for a permanent leader.

The accelerated process should produce a new dean within months, rather than a year, Knapp said, charging the executive committee with appointing a group of faculty to lead the search, instead of waiting for dean nominations.

Having gone through two years of interim transition, it was time now to move forward with establishing and stabilizing the leadership of the medical school, and this was the time to take that step, Knapp said. Thats now started. It should not take as long as a full-dress dean search.

The search committee will be picked by the medical schools executive faculty committee, Lerman said. He added that leaders are still deciding if a consulting firm would be brought in to assist the search.

The expedited search committee will include eight faculty members, one student and a member of the Board of Trustees or an alumnus from the school. University spokeswoman Candace Smith declined to provide specifics about the search beyond the school's bylaws.

Marc Blackman, a professor of medicine, said he was looking for transparency from senior leadership and the search committee when selecting a permanent dean.

And while hastening the search will bring much-needed permanency to the post, Blackman said he would have preferred a more comprehensive search.

[Candidates] need to have a very strong, well-articulated vision as to how to maintain and grow the multi-disciplinary excellence at the University, Blackman said.

The medical schools interim leader, Jeffrey Akman, has been in place since former dean James Scott resigned in November 2010. In addition to overseeing plans for a new curriculum and career services, Akman managed the schools partnerships with the GW Hospital, the Medical Faculty Associates and the schools that formerly comprised the GW Medical Center: the School of Public Health and Health Services and the School of Nursing. Until 2011, the schools shared budgets, bylaws and other operations, but the reorganization gave each school and each dean authority to grow research, faculty and academic programs.

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Medical school speeds search for dean after two years