New deans of the Penn State Smeal College of Business and the College of Medicine will be presented at today's Board of Trustees meeting in Pittsburgh.

Jim Thomas, the current dean of the College of Information Sciences and Technology (IST), will replace Judy Olian as the new dean of the Smeal College of Business.

Olian left Jan. 1 to become dean of UCLA's Anderson School of Management. Thomas is scheduled to resign as IST dean on June 30, and he will begin his new position the next day. He originally planned to become an information sciences professor with a joint appointment in the College of IST and the College of Business.

Harold Paz, dean of the Robert Wood Johnson School of Medicine in New Brunswick, N.J., will replace Darrell Kirch as dean of the College of Medicine, effective April 24.

Paz will also become Hershey Medical Center chief executive officer and Penn State's senior vice president for health affairs. Kirch is leaving to become the president of the Association of American Medical Colleges in Washington, D.C.

David Wormley, dean of the College of Engineering and head of the search committee for the new business dean, said Thomas was selected from among more than 50 nominees. He said the other two final candidates were from outside the university.

Wormley said Thomas began his career at Penn State in the Smeal College of Business and had maintained connections with the college during his tenure as IST dean.

Penn State spokesman Tysen Kendig said Thomas' work in the College of IST made him a strong candidate.

"He essentially took a college that didn't exist and turned it into a model program," Kendig said.

Thomas was unavailable for comment by press time yesterday.

Hershey Medical Center spokesman Sean Young said the search was administered by the search firm Alexander Wollman and Stark, which specializes in academic medicine. He said the search took two to three months and began after Kirch announced his resignation in late November.

Young said it was necessary to use a search firm because of the difficulty in finding qualified candidates for the position.

"Deans of medical centers and colleges don't exist in abundance," he said.

Young said 24 candidates were interviewed for the position. He said Paz's accomplishments at the Robert Wood Johnson School of Medicine, including the creation of a major cancer center and a child health institute, were important factors in his selection.

Sean O'Neill, president of the College of Medicine Graduate Student Association, said no students were involved in the review, but students could have offered their opinions.

"Nobody's really expressed their complaints to me. It all happened so fast," he said.

Young said David Hefner, the chief operating officer and executive director of the medical center, will also be stepping down. He said that the same firm used in the search for Paz will be used in finding a replacement and that he hoped the search would be completed in a "similar timeframe."

Staff assistant Becky Young said searches were still under way for deans of the College of IST and the College of Health and Human Development.

Blannie Bowen, vice provost for academic affairs, said the Schreyer Honors College will be restarting its search for a new dean after the candidate who was offered the job, Lynne Goodstein, associate vice provost and director of the honors program at the University of Connecticut, declined the position.

He said she cited a "dual career situation" with her husband, who works in Boston.

"They couldn't make it work out where both of them would be here at Penn State," he said.

Bowen said he hoped the new search would be completed by the end of the semester. He said Clay Calvert, associate professor of communications and law, would continue as the interim dean of the college.