Search is on for new college's dean

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WLFI) - One of Purdue’s newest college is in need of a dean, so the University has created a nine-member search advisory committee to help find the inaugural dean for the Honors College.

The search committee, led Graduate School Dean Mark J.T. Smith, will find the dean for the Honors College, which was approved by the Purdue Board of Trustees in 2011 and is expected to admit first-year students for fall of 2013.

The college will recruit prospective honors students and give them advising, residential learning opportunities and cross-disciplinary opportunities.

"The dean's primary role is to provide vision and leadership within the new college," said Victor Lechtenberg, acting provost and chief academic officer. "The dean will be dedicated to recruiting top-caliber students, promoting and assuring academic excellence and fundraising to support the facilities and programming needs of the college."

In addition to Smith, who will chair the committee, other members include:

• Rosalee Clawson, professor and head of the Department of Political Science
• Marcos Fernandez, associate dean and director of programming in the College of Agriculture
• Michael Harris, associate dean and director of graduate studies in the College of Engineering, and professor of chemical engineering
• Elizabeth Hudson, an undergraduate student in the Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering
• Jeffrey Karpicke, associate professor of psychological sciences
• Catharine Patrone, student services director of the Honors College
• Mark Ward, assistant professor of statistics
• Gabriela Weaver, professor of chemistry

The Honors College will build on the University Honors Program, which began in 2004. It started with 60 students and increased to roughly 450 earlier this year.