Message from Robert C. Goddard III, Board Chair

February 18, 2020

Dear Emory Community: 

I write today with an update on the considerable progress that the Presidential Selection Committee (PSC) is making in the search for Emory’s next president. Since I last wrote to you on January 15 regarding the selection of the search consultants, we have developed and finalized a prospectus for the position. It was approved yesterday by the Emory Board of Trustees, and I am pleased to share the prospectus, which is on the presidential search website, with you today.

This prospectus is one outcome of almost 40 meetings and listening sessions during which the PSC, the search consultants, and I have had the honor of engaging with the Emory community—students, faculty, alumni, staff, deans, Emory Healthcare professionals, and executives—since December. It also includes input from hundreds of submissions that have come in through the feedback form and the survey on the presidential search website, and from many messages to the PSC email address. In those sessions and, indeed, in all the input we have received, so many of you have spoken eloquently about what you believe are Emory’s greatest strengths. You have likewise expressed your ideas about those areas where you see opportunities for improvement and advancement toward our ultimate and shared mission of achieving eminence as we create, preserve, teach, and apply knowledge in the service of humanity. I hope you agree that while the presidential prospectus cannot possibly include all of those strengths and opportunities with the degree of detail they merit, it is a declaration of much of what Emory is as well as a great deal of what it aspires to be.

Another outcome of the community feedback we have received to date is that the PSC is better prepared to go about its work of identifying and speaking with prospective presidential candidates. Because that work is just beginning and will continue until the right person for Emory emerges, I encourage you to continue to submit input via this form or this survey on the presidential search website, or to the PSC’s email address. I can assure you that we read and carefully consider all of your feedback.

I am proud to be a member of this thoughtful and engaged community, and I look forward to updating you again as we reach major milestones in the presidential selection process.

Sincerely,

Robert C. Goddard III
Chair, Emory University Board of Trustees