Temple University-Japan Dean Kirk Patterson has left Japan but no replacement has been named. Patterson, who announced in August that he was retiring at the end of 2007, has left the country to tend to personal matters. His tenure as TUJ Dean, while not officially finished until Dec. 31, has ended.

One of the two finalists to replace Patterson is currently the man in charge at TUJ, but no official word on the future of the dean position has come. 

The two finalists to replace Patterson, Matthew J. Wilson (at left), 37, current associate dean, chief legal counsel and current acting-dean of TUJ, and Bruce Stronach, a campus outsider and current president of Yokohama City University, were on Main Campus to meet with students and faculty at the end of November.

A search committee, half of whom were based in Tokyo, half in Philadelphia, was expected to have its candidate of choice by early December, for a final decision to come from President Ann Weaver Hart and university Provost Lisa Staiano-Coico.

Word from the university on progress is expected tomorrow.