"The school has a number of imminent concerns," he said. "There are a series of major appointments that need to be made in the faculty. Secondly, many people in the school have believed for a long time and I think rightly that we are in need of a curriculum review as we enter a new century."
Hehir said he also plans to maintain the school's commitment to the study of world religions and to explore the public role of religion--areas in which search committee members praised his expertise.
"It was quite obvious to all of us that of all the very qualified outside candidates, none of them approached his combination of abilities, skills and character that we thought we really need," Cox said. "He's the kind of person who combines the skills and intellectual competence you expect in a university with hands on experience."
Valera said she hoped Hehir would also be able to lead students at a school still reeling from the surprising circumstances surrounding Thiemann's departure.
"A large part of the sentiment from the student body last year was, 'What does this mean for us?"" she said. "I think more of a concern was, 'What does this reflect about the nature of the school?' Part of that was a disconnection from one another."
She said she believed Hehir would be able to help the student body articulate a shared sense of purpose in the wake of Thiemann's departure.
Still, Cox said that the desire for a familiar leader in the wake of the departure and surrounding controversy was not the driving force behind the selection.
"I thought it would [play a role] and it didn't really," Cox said. "When we talked to outside candidates, I was convinced they could handle that situation competently and smoothly, and I was sure [Hehir] could, too."
"It didn't figure very prominently when the actual choice was made," Cox said.
Members of the search committee interviewed and discussed candidates before University President Neil L. Rudenstine made the final selection.
And in a statement released yesterday, Rudenstine praised Hehir for his leadership skills.
"Father Hehir is a man of exceptional intellect and incisiveness, and he possesses rare human and spiritual qualities that make him ideally suited for this important position," he said. "His combination of qualities--humanity, leadership, intelligence, judgement, commitment and administrative ability--is quite simply superb."
Indeed, the only person who seemed surprised by the decision was Hehir, who said yesterday that he had never expected to become the school's permanent head.
"It wasn't a position I had thought about at all," he said. "I understood that I took the position for six months, until they got a new dean."
Hehir played a crucial role in drafting the 1983 Catholic Bishop's Statement on Nuclear Weapons, which advocated eventual nuclear disarmament, and was awarded a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant" for his work on the document.
He received his Th.D. in Applied Theology from the Divinity School, and served as Kennedy Professor of Christian Ethics at Georgetown University's Kennedy Institute of Ethics until 1992