Two UW colleges have announced progress in dean candidate selections.
The College of Business finalists were announced yesterday and the College of Law released the names of its deanship candidates last Thursday. The College of Education is still in the process of conducting phone interviews with semi-finalists.
The university is hoping to fill the deanships before next semester. “The goal is to have all of the dean positions filled before the next academic year,” David L. Jones, vice president of Academic Affairs, said.
The finalists in the College of Law and the College of Business searches are doing public presentations in the coming weeks.
The law school contenders are from a variety of different backgrounds.
Klint Alexander is a lecturer in International Law at Vanderbilt University. Much of Alexander’s research has been in human rights issues and international organizations.
Donald Judges is an associate dean and professor from the University of Arkansas School of Law. At Arkansas, Judges taught constitutional Law, criminal procedure and mental health systems. He also worked as the editor-in-chief of the Maryland Law Review.
Rodney Smolla, a visiting professor at the University of Georgia School of Law, is the former president of Furman University. According to an article from The Paladin, Furman University’s newspaper, Smolla’s resignation from the university came as surprise and many of his policies were “controversial.” Much of his research has focused on First Amendment issues.
Andrew Strauss, the associate dean at Widener University School of Law, focuses his teaching on international law. Strauss graduated from Princeton University, and focuses much of his research on international economic law.
The finalists for the College of Business deanship are similarly diverse.
According to Bill Gern, the College of Business Dean Search Committee chair, there are four finalists for the position.
Paul Bobrowski is the dean of the University of Dayton’s School of Business Administration. Bobrowski is a graduate of the University of Indiana as well as the U.S. Air Force Academy.
The James Henderson Chair in Management and the former dean of the Krannert School of Management at Purdue University, Chris Earley is also a finalist. He previously worked as the dean of the University of Connecticut’s College of Business.
John Mittelstaedt is a professor of marketing and the current interim dean of the University of Wyoming’s College of Business. He is the university’s only interim dean that is also a finalist for a permanent deanship.
The fourth candidate, Sanjay Putrevu, is professor of marketing and former associate dean of the School of Business at the University at Albany. Putrevu’s research focuses on marketing and consumer behavior.
Maggie Farrell, UW’s dean of Libraries, hopes to see many people at the public forums.
“We encourage students, faculty and staff to attend the public forums for all dean candidates,” Farrel said. “Interactions between the candidates and UW community will assist the search committees in our assessment of future leadership for UW.”
The process for choosing a dean for one of the University of Wyoming’s Colleges starts with the formation of a committee. The committee then advertises the position to collect a broad pool of applicants.
Then, the committee chooses semi-finalists to interview over the phone. After becoming more familiar with the candidates, the committee chooses finalists and invites them to give a public presentation on campus. After a period of time for public comments and deliberation, the committee will issue recommendations to Jones, who determines who will be hired.
