Three months after Medill Dean Ken Bode surprised the school with the announcement that he would resign, the search committee for a new dean has pared the list to about 20 candidates out of 99 nominees.

The committee plans to narrow the list to five by early December, before University President Henry Bienen and Provost Larry Dumas make the final decision.

In a June 22 e-mail to Medill faculty, staff and students, Bode cited bureaucratic fatigue as the major factor in his decision to step down after two-and-a-half years as dean.

“Accreditation councils, administrative retreats and program reviews soon will be a part of my personal history,” he wrote.

Bode plans to remain dean throughout the search process or until the end of the academic year. He will continue filling his other duties at Northwestern, including co-chairing the Martin Luther King Jr. Day Committee.

Search committee chairman and Medill Prof. Richard Schwarzlose said that while the committee is looking for a candidate interested in both the journalism industry and in teaching, the most important criteria is administrative experience.

Of Bode, Schwarzlose said: “He’s still a news guy. Deans have to give up some of that. I can well imagine that he would find being a dean here off-putting because of his interest in the business.”

Bode remained host of PBS’ “Washington Week in Review” for more than a year of his tenure as dean and spent the summer working on CNN documentaries about presidential candidates George W. Bush and Al Gore.

Bode’s decision surprised and disappointed many Medill faculty members.

“I find it sort of disturbing that we would have to go look so soon,” Medill Prof. Donna Leff, who co-chaired the search committee that brought Bode to NU in January 1998, told The Summer Northwestern. “I don’t think the external pickings are all that great.”

Schwarzlose said the candidates hail from within and beyond NU, but declined to release further information.

During his time as dean, Bode’s high-profile status and connections in the journalism community attracted big names, big dollars and controversy.

The Crain Lecture Series, which Bode began in September 1998 with a $1 million grant, brought speakers such as Independent Counsel Ken Starr and “NBC Nightly News” anchor Tom Brokaw to campus. While Bode will continue to work on the program, he hopes to delegate some of the responsibility to students.

About the same time as that grant, Medill also received $1.5 million for its first endowed professorship, a broadcasting position called the Knight Chair in Journalism.

In November 1998, Medill broke ground on a $20 million building that will house broadcast technology, a multimedia center and a 150-seat satellite-linked auditorium.