After the search for a new director of the Freshman Outdoor Program (FOP) failed to yield a sufficiently qualified candidate, the College has hired an interim FOP director and postponed the search for a permanent director until the fall, administrators announced this week.

"Because of time constraints, we could not reopen the search in mid-June, when the outcome of the spring interviews became clear," said Dean of Freshmen Elizabeth Studley Nathans. "Doing so would have required that we cancel FOP for the Class of 2003."

Instead, Nathans and FOP search committee members decided to name James Rea Garrett interim director of the program. Garrett, who will assume the post on July 15, will serve as director during the FOP trips themselves, which occur during late August.

He comes to the post after designing and leading outdoor programs at the Gilman School in Baltimore. He has also served as an instructor and on the board of the Hurricane Island Outward Bound School.

"We look forward to benefiting immensely from his leadership and technical skills, from his deep knowledge of outdoor programs in schools and colleges and from his broad perspectives on program content and development," Nathans wrote in an e-mail.

The original search for the new FOP director began in late April, after outgoing FOP Director Beth Bellman announced that she would leave the program to pursue a Ph.D. in psychology at the University of Iowa.

Nathans, Bellman and the student members of the FOP search committee began a search with just a few months remaining in the year, and reviewed applications and held interviews during reading period and exams.

"It's awfully late to be beginning a search," Nathans said at the time. "This is going to put extraordinary burdens on them during exams."

Bellman, who also served as a proctor in Mower Hall, led the FOP program for five years during a time in which the program rose out of debt.