Finalists for the position of West Virginia University’s dean of the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences will visit the main campus beginning Wednesday, October 7.

Candidates will spend approximately two full days in Morgantown. They will each meet with administration, faculty, staff and students, including in an open-forum session with the campus community. They will also each offer a seminar in which they articulate their vision for the future of the Eberly College.

“We are bringing these exceptional candidates to campus to get to know them better and to show them who we are,” said Daniel Robison, dean of the Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Design and chair of the screening committee. “As the largest and most academically diversified college on campus, Eberly needs a dean with both vision and exceptional leadership abilities. These candidates will have the opportunity to speak to the future of a land-grant university’s college of arts and sciences and to explore with university leadership how they can help fulfill our mission. We are excited to identify the absolutely best person for Eberly and for West Virginia University.”

The four candidates, and the dates of their visits, are:

Dawn Bratsch-Prince (October 7-9)
Dawn Bratsch-Prince is associate provost for faculty and professor of Spanish at Iowa State University. She previously served as associate dean in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (2007-2010), where her portfolio included international programs, including study abroad; distance and online education; faculty development; and faculty and staff awards in the college. She has also served as director of the college’s international studies program (2007-2010), as interim director of the women’s studies program (2009-2010), and as chair of the Department of World Languages and Cultures (2002-2008). She was named Post-Secondary Educator of the Year for 2006 by the Iowa World Language Association in recognition of her work on articulation and advocacy in world language education. She is a former member of the executive committee of the Modern Language Association’s Association of Departments of Foreign Languages (ADFL), having served as ADFL president for 2010. Bratsch-Prince serves on the executive board of the Iowa Network for Women in Higher Education and the Big 12 Chief Diversity Officers’ Consortium.

Bratsch-Prince’s research interests span the discipline of medieval Iberian studies. Her first book was an edition and study of the unique Aragonese translation Li livres dou tresor, Brunetto Latini’s popular thirteenth-century encyclopedia. Her second book, Vida y epistolario de Violante de Bar (1365-1431), treats the life and writings of Violante de Bar, a French noblewoman who became an influential queen of Aragon. She has published articles on historical linguistics, medieval translation, and women’s writings. Bratsch-Prince earned her B.A. and M.A. in Spanish from New York University and her Ph.D. in Romance Philology from the University of California at Berkeley.

Dr. Bratsch-Prince’s vision seminar will be on October 8 at 3 p.m. in the Rhododendron Room of the Mountainlair. Her open forum will be on October 9 at 9 a.m. in the same room.

Richard Forgette (October 13-15)
Rich Forgette is the Senior Associate Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Professor of Political Science at the University of Mississippi. He has served as Senior Associate Dean since 2011 and as Interim Dean of the College in 2014-15. His previous roles include Department Chair of Political Science at UM from 2003-2011, Assistant and Associate Professor of Political Science at Miami University (Oxford, Ohio) from 1991-2003, and the American Political Science Association’s Steiger Congressional Fellow in 1996-97, working in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate.

Forgette’s research and teaching fields are in the study of legislatures and legislative elections. He is the author of two books and numerous journal articles on the U.S. Congress spending process, legislative parties, legislative elections, voting rights, redistricting, and public budgeting. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation and Department of Homeland Security. He also led interdisciplinary research teams assessing disaster recovery and relief after Hurricane Katrina as well as creating measures and models of community resilience to withstand large-scale disasters. Forgette earned his B.A. from Pennsylvania State University, an M.A. degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and an M.S. in Public Policy Analysis and Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Rochester.

Dr. Forgette’s vision seminar will be on October 14 at 3 p.m. in 325 Brooks Hall. His open forum will be on October 15 at 9 a.m. in the same room.

John Kiss (October 18-20)
John Z. Kiss has been the dean of the graduate school at the University of Mississippi since 2012. His academic appointments include Professor of Biology and Research Professor in the Research Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences. John was previously on the faculty of Miami University in Oxford, Ohio (1993-2012) where his most recent appointment was as University Distinguished Professor. He has also had many service and leadership roles, including on the university promotion and tenure committee and in the university senate, and significant editorial activities, including Associate Editor for the American Journal of Botany and Editor for Advances in Space Research. He is the current President of the Conference of Southern Graduate Schools (2015-16).

Kiss’s research focuses on the gravitational and space biology of plants. He has published 102 peer-reviewed papers and been invited to present seminars based on his research at universities throughout the US and in 12 other countries. He has served as PI on grants from NASA, USDA, NSF, and the NIH (career total = $5.9 million) as well as PI on seven spaceflight experiments on the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station. In 2014, Kiss received the NASA Outstanding Public Leadership Medal “for exceptional contributions in spaceflight research in the fundamental biology of plants in support of NASA’s exploration mission.”

He has served as President of the Midwestern Section of the American Society of Plant Biologists (2001-02) and the American Society of Gravitational and Space Biology (2003-04). Kiss earned his B.S. in biology with a history minor from Georgetown University and a Ph.D. in Botany & Plant Physiology from Rutgers University.

Dr. Kiss’s vision seminar will be on October 19 at 3 p.m. in 325 Brooks Hall. His open forum will be on October 20 at 9 a.m. in the same room.

Greg Dunaway (October 21-23)
Dr. Dunaway is the current dean of the College of Arts & Sciences at Mississippi State University. Prior his appointment as dean in 2013, he served as the associate dean for academic and student affairs (2011-2012) and was also the Thomas Bailey Professor of Sociology and former department head of sociology (2008-2011). He is also a Research Fellow at the Social Science Research Center at MSU.

Dunaway’s research interests include: examining social factors associated with crime and delinquency; trends, inequality and crime and justice; and criminal justice policy. He has conducted research on a number of justice programs in Mississippi, including performing an evaluation of Mississippi’s Drug Court Program, a survey of Mississippi’s Juvenile Detention Facilities and a study on disproportionate minority contact within the Mississippi juvenile justice system. Dr. Dunaway’s work has been published in outlets such as Criminology, Justice Quarterly, The American Journal of Criminal Justice, Research in Crime and Delinquency and the Journal of Quantitative Criminology. Dunaway, who teaches in the areas of criminology, justice policy and social stratification, was the recipient of the 2000 Alumni Association’s Graduate Teacher of the Year and received the Dean of Students Award of Excellence in 2012. He is currently the immediate past president of the Southern Criminal Justice Association. He earned his B.A. from Loyola University Maryland (1982) and M.S. and Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Cincinnati (1988, 1991).

Dr. Dunaway’s vision seminar will be on October 22 at 3 p.m. in the Rhododendron Room of the Mountainlair. His open forum will be on October 23 at 9 a.m. in 325 Brooks Hall.

For the full position description for the dean of the Eberly College, see http://eberly.wvu.edu/jobs.

The new dean will report to Provost Joyce McConnell. The University anticipates that the new dean will be on campus by summer 2016.

-WVU-

ac/09/29/15

CONTACT: Joyce McConnell, WVU provost
304.293.7119; joyce.mcconnell@mail.wvu.edu

Follow @WVUToday on Twitter.