Dean Candidates to Present Open Forums

Three finalists for the dean’s position in the Emma Eccles Jones College of Education and Human Services at Utah State University have been announced, and open forum visits have been scheduled.

 

The candidates are Jim Dorward, M. Jayne Fleener and B. Kay Pasley. All candidates will be featured in an open forum, question-and-answer session intended for faculty, staff and students to have the opportunity to interact with each finalist. All forums will be held from 4-5 p.m. and are open to the general public.

 

Richard W. Clement, dean of libraries at USU and chair of the search committee, said the committee looked at an extraordinarily strong pool of candidates interested in the position, including sitting deans, associate deans and highly qualified department heads from outstanding programs across the nation.

 

“We had a difficult time narrowing the choice to just three to bring to campus, which goes to show that the three candidates we did select truly are extraordinary,” he said. “The college has a great reputation across the country as one of the nation’s best, so people in the field know its strengths.”

 

The Emma Eccles Jones College of Education and Human Services ranks in the top 2 percent of graduate schools of education nationally and ranks 10th in external research dollars. The new dean will replace Carol Strong, who has served the college as dean since 2004. Strong is retiring.

 

A summary of each candidate is included with the schedule of the campus visits.

 

B. Kay Pasley’s open forum is Monday, March 1, and begins at 4 p.m. in the Edith Bowen Laboratory School Auditorium.

 

Pasley earned a doctorate in 1974 from Indiana University. She is presently professor and chair of the Department of Family and Child Sciences at Florida State University. Prior to Florida State, Pasley served as associate dean for research and graduate studies and was the director of the Center for Research in the school of human environmental sciences at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Early in her career, Pasley was the director of early childhood laboratories at both the University of Kentucky and Washington State University. An active scholar, she has published extensively on family and personal relationships with a focus on marriage and divorce and has served on several editorial review boards. 

 

Jim Dorward’s open forum is Thursday, March 4, and begins at 4 p.m. in the Edith Bowen Laboratory School Auditorium.

 

Dorward earned a doctorate from the University of Oregon in 1991. Dorward is the associate dean for research in the Emma Eccles Jones College of Education and Human Services at Utah State University where he holds the rank of professor of education. He has also served Utah State as interim department head of elementary education. Specializing in program evaluation, research methods and mathematics education, Dorward has published widely in mathematics education and evaluation journals and been principal investigator and project evaluator on several large-scale national projects. His collaborations in project-based research include the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives, resulting in two USU Web sites recording more than 8 million unique users and 1.5 billion hits a year. Dorward and each of the members of his team of collaborators were recently awarded the Governor’s Medals for Science and Technology.

 

M. Jayne Fleener’s open forum is Monday, March 8, and begins at 4 p.m. in the Edith Bowen Laboratory School Auditorium.

 

Fleener earned a doctorate from the University of North Carolina in 1988. Since 2004, Fleener has served as the dean of the College of Education at Louisiana State University and holds the position of the E.B. “Ted” Endowed Professor of Education. Prior to her current position, she was associate dean for research and graduate studies in the College of Education at the University of Oklahoma in Norman and professor in the department of instructional leadership and academic curriculum. During the past six years as dean she led a college capital campaign resulting in almost a doubling of the college’s endowment, faculty extramural funding increased 75 percent, and she restructured the college to promote greater faculty collaboration. Fleener is the author of more than 80 publications, and her research and scholarship has been supported by both state and federal (NSF) agencies.

 

Clement said the dean of the Emma Eccles Jones College of Education and Human Services is an important position for the entire campus and for the community itself, including the statewide community, in that the college reaches out to constituents across so many disciplines. He invited anyone interested to meet the candidates at any of the open forums.