After serving 37 years as head of special collections and archivist for A&M-Commerce, Dr. James Conrad retired last week. The university now faces the lengthy endeavor of finding a replacement.
According to Director of Libraries Greg Mitchell, the search for a new head of special collections will get underway near the end of the semester. Mitchell said the wait is due to the university’s need to hire a new special collections archivist prior to filling Conrad’s position.
“The university archivist search, I expect to begin in early May,” he said. “That’s the time that we would go through getting the university paperwork for forming a search committee and placing the ads. And it’ll be a national search.”
Although a job advertisement has not yet been written, Mitchell has a few requirements in mind for any potential candidates.
“We would want somebody who has several years of experience in an archives or special collections function,” he said. “We would want somebody who has a good background in education in archives and processing in archives. Somebody who is good at working with the public community constituencies. Somebody who’s organized. [Special collections] is a department that has a lot going on. You need somebody who’s going to be organized and able to be an administrator for an area like that.”
Having been with the university for 37 years, Conrad garnered a considerable amount of respect from his colleagues on campus.
“Dr. Conrad is a real treasure on this campus,” Dean of University College Ricky Dobbs said. “His career is a story of devotion to an institution and the building of its academic reputation. Whoever replaces Dr. Conrad will have some big shoes to fill, but will also have a strong foundation upon which to build.”
Other faculty members, such as friend and colleague Gail Johnston, do not have as much confidence in a candidate’s ability to reach the benchmark set by Conrad.
“I don’t think a new candidate could fill his shoes,” Associate Director of Libraries Johnston said. “I think they’re going have to start over and make a place for themselves. The person who comes in to take that place is going to have to start with the path that he has set out, and then find their own way. There’s no one who’s going to come in and know the things that he knew. He knows a lot of the history of the university. He knows a lot of the history of Commerce. He knows a lot of the history of Northeast Texas. So somebody coming into that position is going to have to learn those things.”