About two weeks ago, SMU Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Paul Ludden interviewed for a similar job at Marquette University in Wisconsin. Ludden met with faculty, staff, students and administrators during his visit.

Ludden has held his position at SMU since 2007 where he has served on several university, government and business advisory boards and panels.

According to Marquette’s student newspaper, “The Marquette Tribune,” Ludden is interested in the provost position at the university for its values. If chosen, he said he would continue the Jesuit tradition with academic, community involvement, engaged learning and diversity.

“Marquette’s desire to educate the whole individual and really send our students out there with the knowledge that they need, but also the commitment to serve humanity, is very attractive to me,” Ludden said to “The Marquette Tribune.”

The provost’s possible choice to leave SMU comes at a tumultuous time, with the Operational Excellence for the 2nd Century (OE2C) program in its second, development and design stage, and in the beginning stages of its final implementation stage.

On Jan. 15 SMU began layoffs of 100 administrators and employees in its Organization Design Initiative. The university hopes to reduce administrative costs by more than $35 million.

Ludden is one of four finalists for the provost position at the Milwaukee university. Other candidates include Rowena Pecchenino, dean and vice president of the faculty of social sciences at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth; John Frendreis, political science professor at Loyola University Chicago; and Daniel Myers, vice president and associate provost for faculty affairs at the University of Notre Dame.

All interviews and meetings for the provost position were completed this week.

Marquette University President Michael Lovell will make the final provost selection this March, to begin work in Summer 2015.

The Daily Campus will continue to update this story as more information becomes available.