Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences

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Chapter 4. 1993-2002
Focusing Our Unique Capabilities

Susan Avery
S. K. Avery
To begin the process of selecting a new director, the Council of Fellows met with Vice Chancellor Bruce Ekstrand in late 1992 to discuss his conditions for the search and the imminent appointment. A number of fellows felt strongly that a national search should be authorized in order to attract a broad group of qualified candidates. Vice-Chancellor Ekstrand proposed to the fellows that, if they were to recommend for appointment a person already on the Boulder campus faculty (an "internal" candidate), he would authorize the recruitment of a new seniorlevel faculty member in a field to be chosen by CIRES. Given this welcome opportunity to further strengthen the CIRES scientific capabilities, the fellows agreed to start with a thorough search for qualified current faculty members. If no acceptable candidates were interested, the search would then be opened to outside candidates.

A search committee was formed in January 1993. Dan Albritton, Fred Fehsenfeld (co-chair), and George Reid represented NOAA. Alex Goetz (co-chair), Carl Kisslinger, Konrad Steffen, and Carol Wessman represented the CU faculty fellows, and Lynn Walloch, represented the CIRES staff.

In principle, the director of CIRES may be either a CU faculty member or a NOAA Civil Service scientist. The committee agreed that because CIRES exists as an institute of the University, it was desirable that the director be a faculty member and the search was so restricted. The search committee compiled a list of potential candidates and nominations were elicited from the CIRES staff and fellows. A number of well-qualified scientists were contacted and interviewed. Two formal applications resulted from this process. As a conclusion, the search committee strongly recommended to the fellows that they vote to submit Susan K. Avery to the dean of the Graduate School and the director of ERL for their consideration for appointment to the directorship of CIRES. She was appointed.

Avery represented at least three "firsts" in becoming the director of CIRES. She was the first director who had come to CIRES originally as a visiting fellow (1982) and had worked her way up the scientific and academic ladders. She was the first atmospheric scientist and the first woman to hold the position. At the time of her appointment she was a professor in the CU Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and had recently completed a three-year term as associate dean of research and education in the College of Engineering.

Prior to her decision to apply for the directorship, Avery had arranged for a sabbatical leave beginning in summer 1993, to be spent doing research in Australia. As a condition of her candidacy she required that, if chosen, she could begin her service at the end of this leave. To fill the gap, the fellows asked Kisslinger if he would return for a brief term as director. The regents formally appointed him interim director, June 1993 to August 31, 1994. Avery took office on September 1, 1994.

One of the first actions taken by Avery was to negotiate with Ekstrand to convert the senior faculty position now committed to CIRES into two junior level appointments. In this way, CIRES gained greater flexibility in near-term growth with little additional financial implications.

The Council of Fellows and the executive committee under the leadership of the director continued to carry out the administration, governance, and planning functions. Major development directions were debated and decided at biennial retreats and desirable changes put in place. Revised bylaws and a revised strategic plan were generated. The leadership grouped CIRES research, within the established framework of the scientific divisions, under five themes designed to give the work coherence and direction.