Berkeley’s Search for a Journalism Dean Founders Again

Two years, hundreds of candidates, and a few job offers later, the University of California at Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism still can’t seem to find a permanent leader.

The school’s second major search for a dean is on the verge of failure, the Contra Costa Times reported yesterday, after all three finalists dropped out of consideration this month. A previous search ran into problems in 2007, when Dianne Lynch, whose appointment to the post had already been announced, decided to stay at Ithaca College.

Lincoln Caplan, a magazine journalist who recently removed his name from consideration, told the newspaper that the school’s faculty had been unable to agree on a choice, and that the process was taking much longer than expected. “Everything about it was uncertain,” he said. “It was just a process it didn’t make sense to continue with.”