New dean on the block

After a year of searching for a new College of Fine Arts dean, Janna Arney, executive vice president and provost, sent a campuswide email on April 20 announcing Jeffrey Ward of Kansas State University as dean, effective July 1. 

Ward is the current director of the School of Music, Theater and Dance at Kansas State University. 

He received a doctorate of musical arts in music education (conducting) from Shenandoah Conservatory in Winchester, Virginia; his master’s of music degree in choral conducting from East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina; and his bachelor’s of arts in music with a teacher preparation certificate from Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida.

In a Zoom interview with The Rider from Manhattan, Kansas, Ward said he first visited the Edinburg campus on March 21 and the Brownsville campus on March 22. 

“I was really looking for a place where I could come in and make a difference and have the partners in helping the college move forward and having supportive faculty and students that were excited about moving to the next chapter,” he said. 

One of Ward’s goals for his career at UTRGV is to create a group that would look at the outreach component to connect students to opportunities outside the college in terms of internship and field experiences. 

The second goal is to build global citizenship, in which students can have the opportunities to study abroad and bring new experiences back to the Rio Grande Valley. The third is to help the schools and the departments within the college to define what their strategic directions are and provide the resources and the infrastructure for them to be successful.

“As a dean, I’m going to work on creating a student advisory leadership group that [will have] direct conversations with me,” Ward said. “I want students to see me in their classes, at their exhibitions and their performances because … that’s really important to me, to build that relationship and to build that trust that students can come to me and feel like they’re going to be heard and that their perspective is going to be taken seriously. That’s really important.”

Katherine McAllen, director of the UTRGV Center for Latin American Arts and a School of Art and Design professor, was one of nine members in the College of Fine Arts search committee. 

Other search committee members were Jean Braithwaite, an associate professor in the Creative Writing Department; Hector Rodriguez, a School of Music lecturer; John Garza, a director of development for the College of Fine Arts; Jonathan Guist, a School of Music professor; Min Kim, a Department of Dance professor; Paul Jorgensen, an associate professor and director of Environmental Studies; Peter Mikolasky, a director and associate professor in the Department of Theatre; and Vallerie Hernandez, program coordinator for the School of Music.

McAllen hopes for Ward to help the School of Art and Design become accredited by the National Association of Schools of Music.

“Dr. Ward is a NASM accreditor, so … he’s the person that comes to campus and visits and helps give other university departments their accreditation,” she said. 

McAllen said she looks forward to collaborating with Ward on projects at the UTRGV Center for Latin American Arts to support faculty, students and all the different departments of the college. 

“I look forward to supporting him and helping bring faculty together to help support our students,” she said. “As a faculty member in the School of Art and Design, I look forward to welcoming Dr. Ward and helping him get to know our faculty and our talented students and include him in art events that we organize.”

Luis Torres-Hostos, founding dean and professor in the School of Social Work, was the chair for the search committee. 

Torres-Hostos said the committee narrowed down the list of applicants from more than 50 to 18 and then to four.

“The four people that came to campus, that’s what we call the short list,” he said. “What set Dr. Ward apart from the other three candidates, you know, one of the things is his vision for the position, and then, the other one is just his philosophy about leadership overall.”

Torres-Hostos said another thing that set Ward apart was his vision for the role in terms of how to bring together the unique strengths of two campuses.

“A lot of programs have programs in both campuses, Brownsville and Edinburg and the College of Fine Arts is one of those units,” he said. “They have a strong presence in both and that creates some important challenges but also creates some phenomenal opportunities. 

“And Dr. Ward had some great ideas about how to leverage the distinctiveness of each of the two communities … and also some ideas about how to address the challenges that come with being miles apart. … He is currently a director of a school in Kansas State University that has three departments, so he has experience with larger units like ours as well. That’s an important thing.”

According to Torres-Hostos, Ward has a desire to partner with everybody, but especially with students. He said Ward understands that UTRGV students are really important partners in everything that the university does. 

“The students are not just passive recipients of an education,” he said. “ They are active partners in their education and their training. The students have ideas about how to make the college function better and Dr. Ward is open to those ideas and open to working with students to make the College of Fine Arts a great college.” 

Ward said he is excited to be a part of the university community and to continue building partnerships. 

“The college has the opportunity to be, kind of, that public good that I think high universities are supposed to be, and it’s positioned really well in the Valley to be such a valuable resource for the region, for our students, for our arts programs, for education programs, for industry, and I am honored to have the opportunity to be able to lead the college in that endeavor,” he said.