By EMILY SANDERSO
President Merrill J. Bateman announced on Jan. 4 two new appointments to vice-president positions at BYU.
Alan L. Wilkins will replace Todd A. Britsch as academic vice president and James D. Gordon, formerly a member of the law faculty, will replace Wilkins as associate vice president for faculty relations.
Britsch will be a presidential consultant to President Bateman for Winter Semester. He will return to the faculty as a researcher and teacher in the Department of Humanities and Comparative Literature after he takes a professional leave of absence in the spring, Britsch said.
“I went into this business to teach,” he said. “I’m 58 years old and I want to spend my remaining years doing what I set out to do.”
As a presidential adviser, Britsch will work on the accreditation of the university which will determine whether degrees received here are worth anything to the rest of the world.
He is working on evaluating the results of the Self Study, a full-scale evaluation of the university.
The study involves research on whether some departments should be cut back or enhanced based on technological advances, student interest and their relationship with the LDS Church.
The Self Study is also considering the natural strengths of the university and ways in which it can do more good based on facilities and faculty ability, he said.
Britsch has served as dean of the College of Humanities, as an associate academic vice president and as an academic vice president during the past decade.
Gordon has held several administrative positions which will help him with his new position of hiring and advancing the rank of faculty. He has been the chair of the faculty appointments committee, which hires new faculty and the vice chair of the academic freedom committee.
He has also been the chair of the university committee which worked on developing a seminar for training new faculty and he was a co-chair of the BYU faculty advisory council.
Gordon said he has a lot to learn about the university according to the needs of his new position.
His position’s responsibilities include faculty hiring, rank advances, issuing continuing faculty status to members of faculty and responding to faculty issues, he said.
Wilkins was appointed as an associate vice president in 1994. Before then, he was chair of the Department of Organizational Behavior beginning in 1978.
