William Hudson, the dean of the College of EMS (Engineering, Mathematics and Science), has left his position.
Although Chancellor Dennis Shields was unable to go into detail due to legal concerns, he mentioned that it was in part due to concerns about faculty leaving, unspent money in the budget and a lack of transparency when it came to matters of decision making.
The sudden lack of leadership in the College of EMS alarmed many students.
Until the chancellor and vice chancellor are able to find a permanent dean, Joanne Wilson, who has a doctoral degree and was a previous interim dean, will be stepping up to the plate.
Although there will be a temporary dean in place, there are still some challenges that the College of EMS can potentially face.
For instance, they are currently entering the budget process, which can be difficult because Wilson does not know as much about the needs of the College of EMS as Dean Hudson.
It may take until next year for a permanent dean to be chosen for the College of EMS.
After this semester, Wilson will step down and a professor from the College of EMS will take her place.
Students can nominate a professor they think would fit the position of dean by emailing Vice Chancellor Mittie N. Den Herder at [email protected].
The process they will endure in order to choose a permanent dean after that will be through a search and screen committee.
The committee will be made up of mostly faculty, as well as alumni, students and others who are not part of the college campus.
This committee will choose three to five candidates, and then the vice chancellor will interview each candidate and pick one she feels would be the best fit.
She will then recommend this candidate to the chancellor, and he will make the final decision.
“I think they [the new dean] need to have expertise in the subject matter. They need to have, in their mind, that a good part of what they need to do is leading,” Shields said. “I think leading takes a special talent.”
EMS students are currently concerned about much more than the dean leaving and the potential lack of leadership.
Many staff members in the College of EMS have left for various reasons, and it has been hard for the college to hire new professors. This has caused some students to be turned away by professors because they have an overloaded class schedule, causing them to not always be able to help students outside of class like they should be able to.
This, along with the worry of other professors resigning in the near future, has some students concerned about facing an even more difficult time getting into the classes they need in order to graduate on time due to the understaffed College of EMS, which may not allow for a variety of class openings.
Another concern that students have is financing within the College of EMS.
They are desperately in need of new equipment, as well as more staff members.
“There is $1.4 million dollars sitting there from that the last two budgets that has not been spent. This money can address some of the issues,” Shields said.
This number is two or three times as much as the money that the colleges of BILSA and LAE have left unspent.
There are plans to use the money to attempt to fix some of the issues within the College of EMS.
Fifth-year industrial engineering major Rachael McWilliams is concerned that programs have been unnecessarily cut, which could negatively affect students even though there is money in the budget.
“My teacher, whom I used to work for, had his T.A. [teacher’s assistant] taken away because it wasn’t in the budget,” McWilliams said. “It’s confusing why they are taking away these opportunities when we have $1.4 million available.”
McWilliams is also worried that students are not voicing their opinions about what they think the College of EMS needs.
“I think it’s imperative that we have students that are vocal; that’s something that I think we have less of in EMS than in other colleges,” McWilliams said. “I think we need our students to be more passionate about the education they are receiving.”
Michael Caraway, senior mechanical engineering major, does not think that voicing more opinions will solve some of the problems at hand.
“The entire student body, faculty included, need to keep pushing to improve the campus because we have arguments and discussions, but at the end of the day, we need to follow through,” Caraway said.
