Ohio Valley Correspondent

WHEELING — Nearly three months after the forced departure of the Jesuit priest who led the school for two years, Wheeling Jesuit University is no closer to finding his replacement than the day he left.

The committee in charge of finding a successor to the Rev. Julio Giulietti, S.J., fired Aug. 5 for undisclosed reasons, week announced this week it had suspended the search. Committee members cited a dwindling pool of job candidates and time constraints as reasons for its decision.

The chairman of Wheeling Jesuit’s board of directors said the committee had promised to bring two or three candidates to campus to meet students and staff. When they couldn’t live up to that guarantee, the search was suspended.

“We guaranteed we would have two or three candidates, and we did not have that,” said William Fisher, who, in addition to his duties as board chairman, was a search committee alternate.

Fisher said his involvement in the search process was limited because of recent surgery, but he understood that one of the remaining candidates withdrew his name from consideration.

“We want to make sure we make the right decision,” Fisher said.

Giulietti, the school’s eighth president, had held the job a little more than two years before being forced out by the school’s trustees. The school has never given a reason for Giulietti’s ouster, and Fisher would say only that Giulietti’s departure was a personnel issue.

J. Davitt McAteer, a vice president at Wheeling Jesuit, has served as interim president since Giulliett's departure. McAteer has since indicated he is not interested in the job full time.

Fisher, meanwhile, said he’s not sure when the search will resume.

“What we’re trying to address is patience; we want to get it right,” Fisher said. “I think the timetable will be controlled when we find viable candidates. We want more than one choice.”

For the first time, school leaders are looking outside the Jesuit community for a president.

Fisher said that’s not unexpected given the declining numbers of men entering the priesthood.

“With the short pool of Jesuits available, probably the most qualified of them are being saved for the bigger schools, like Georgetown and Boston College,” he said. “We did not (rule out) a Jesuit, but we did not have any apply.”