Betsy Hoffman, whose presidency at the University of Colorado disintegrated in the midst of two high- profile controversies, is among the finalists for Iowa State University provost.
The job is a step down from president but comes after Hoffman worked for a year as an economics professor at CU’s Denver campus.
The former head of the three- campus university system has avoided the spotlight since she stepped down in July 2005.
Hoffman said in an e-mailed statement Wednesday that she was “honored to have been selected” and was looking forward to interviews today and Friday in Ames, Iowa.
Hoffman and Purdue University science dean Jeffrey S. Vitter are the two finalists. They were chosen from more than 100 applicants, said search committee chairwoman Tahira K. Hira, an ISU economics professor.
The selection committee discussed Hoffman’s “very public” troubles at CU, but when they judged Hoffman by the selection criteria, “she stood out loudly and clearly,” Hira said.
“What we were looking for is someone who would provide strong academic leadership,” she said.
Kathleen Beatty, dean of CU’s Graduate School of Public Affairs, where Hoffman is scheduled to teach again this fall, said the former president is a “skilled administrator” who is “very respected by faculty.”
If Hoffman gets the job, it won’t be her first at Iowa State – she was ISU’s arts and sciences dean from 1993 to 1997.
Hoffman also was provost of the University of Illinois-Chicago and was a professor at the University of Arizona, Purdue University and Northwestern University.
She told the Iowa State Daily that the provost job appeals to her because she is a “consummate academic.”
Hoffman announced her resignation from CU in March 2005, amid scandals involving football recruiting and professor Ward Churchill’s essay comparing some victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to Nazi Adolf Eichmann.
After problems involving sex and alcohol in football recruiting, Hoffman kept former athletic director Dick Tharp, who has since resigned, and former head coach Gary Barnett in their jobs. But she reorganized the department, instituting some of the nation’s most stringent recruiting rules. Hoffman spent some of her tenure at CU battling lawsuits filed in 2002 and 2003 by women who said CU failed to address complaints of sexual assaults involving football players.
Critics said one of Hoffman’s biggest mistakes came during a deposition involving one of those lawsuits when she defended a derisive four- letter term for women that one CU player used.
Hoffman again drew criticism when she assured faculty members that Churchill would not lose his job on free-speech grounds and complained of a new McCarthyism sweeping the nation.
Staff writer Jennifer Brown can be reached at 303-954-1593 or jenbrown@denverpost.com.
