IEP still searching for permanent director

By Jessica Cervantez
Staff Reporter

The Intensive English program is still looking for a permanent director after former director Kurk Gayle left to seek other professional opportunities last semester.

Director of International Education, Delia Pitts, has been acting as the interim director since Gayle’s departure. She said acting as the interim is not a problem because she’s always had the task of supervising the program. She said the IEP is always in search for replacements to fill positions, so they could deal with losing the director.

“It happens frequently that we have to fill temporary gaps,” Pitts said.

Pitts said there is a search committee to find applicants for all openings across the program.

Carol Orloff, administrative assistant, said the reason there’s a big turnover rate in hiring teachers deals with the student enrollment. She said if there’s a larger number of students enrolled, there’s a larger number of temporary hires.

Orloff said there was a National Teachers of English to Speak of Languages conference held recently, where members of the IEP and the search committee attended to find perspective employees. She said she knew several interviews were conducted during this time.

Gayle left TCU after 5 1/2 years when he was offered the opportunity to work at Harcourt College of Professional Publishers, as a senior editor, and he decided to accept it.

“(Harcourt College of Professional Publishers) is interested in expanding English as a second language, and it has a lot of potential,” Gayle said.

Gayle said that after they put IEP online, four publishers wanted to partner with it. It just so happened that Harcourt College of Professional Publishers was one of them.

Gayle said he was speculating that the IEP would have trouble finding candidates to fill the position.

“I know that as we speak, other universities are actively looking for directors,” Gayle said. “The economy being what it is makes it rough to find people.”

Jessica Cervantez
j.s.cervantez@student.tcu.edu