Search for Dean, College of Liberal Arts
About the Search
Colorado State University seeks a collaborative and visionary leader to serve as its next Dean of the College of Liberal Arts. The CLA Dean will bring the land-grant mission to life by utilizing the transformative power of the arts, humanities, and social sciences to provide educational, research, and experiential opportunities that create real-world impact for our students, faculty, and staff.
Through teaching, research, and outreach, the Dean will empower the College to actively engage in creating positive change in the lives of our students and our communities, both locally and globally. Our society’s most pressing problems, from climate change to social justice, require the creative, collaborative, and complex ways of thinking and making the Liberal Arts typifies. Come lead our award-winning faculty as we engage in world-class research and creative endeavors and engage in innovative teaching practices, all in hopes of bettering our rapidly changing world.
The Dean is the principal administrative and academic officer of the College and reports to the University’s Provost and Executive Vice President. The Dean is responsible for managing and ensuring the quality of the College’s academic programs, implementing policies, managing personnel and financial resources, and securing internal and external support. The Dean provides leadership to the College by establishing a compelling vision and implementing a strategic plan to achieve that vision.
Learn more about the College of Liberal Arts.
Campus Open Forums
The campus community is invited to participate in open forums and to provide feedback on each of the finalist candidates for the position of Dean, College of Liberal Arts. Open forums will include presentations by the candidates and opportunities to ask questions.
One business day prior to each campus open forum, each candidate’s CV, cover letter, meeting link, and feedback form will become available on this website.
Candidate 1: Monday, April 29, 10-11 a.m. Lory Student Center Room 386
Candidate 1 Open Forum Zoom Link, CV and Cover Letter, and Feedback Form
Candidate 2: Monday, May 6, 10-11 a.m. Lory Student Center Room 386
Candidate 3: Wednesday, May 8, 10-11 a.m. Lory Student Center Room 386
Candidate 4: Monday, May 13, 10-11 a.m. Lory Student Center Room 386
*The Open Forum Recordings and Qualtrics Feedback Surveys will be available until Tuesday, May 14th at 5 p.m.
Search Timeline
- February 1 – Committee received charge
- February 23 – Job posted
- March 24 – Application deadline (full consideration)
- Week of April 8 – Semifinalist interviews
- April 18 – Committee meets to select finalists
- Late April-Early May – Finalist interviews
- April 28-30 – Candidate 1
- May 5-7 – Candidate 2
- May 7-9 – Candidate 3
- May 12-14 – Candidate 4
Search Committee
Chair
- Karen Estlund – Professor and Dean, Libraries
Committee Members
- Carmen Martin Quijada – Assistant Professor, Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures
- Catherine DiCesare – Associate Professor, Department of Art and Art History; Associate Curator, Gregory Allicar Museum of Art
- Dan Beachy-Quick – University Distinguished Teaching Scholar; Professor, Department of English
- Ellie Light – Assistant Dean for Student Success, College of Liberal Arts; Senior Instructor, Department of Communication Studies
- Emily Morgan – Director of Dance and Associate Professor of Dance, School of Music, Theatre, and Dance
- Emily Reese – Junior, Department of Sociology
- Guy Numa – Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies, Department of Economics
- Kelly McGregor – Academic Success Coordinator, departments of Languages, Literatures and Cultures/International Studies/Political Science
- Kevin Weaver – Managing Director of Development, College of Liberal Arts
- Kyle Saunders – Professor, Department of Political Science
- Samuel Tham – Assistant Professor, Department of Journalism and Media Communication
- Sushmita Chatterjee – Professor and Chair, Department of Ethnic Studies
- Tara Opsal – Associate Professor and Associate Chair, Department of Sociology
- Wes Scharf – Director of Finance and Administration, College of Liberal Arts
Support
- Lani Williams – Assistant to the Dean of Libraries, Libraries
- Claire Clemens – Executive Assistant to the Vice President for Human Resources, Human Resources
Equal Opportunity Coordinator
- Becca McCarty – Senior Human Resources Manager, College of Liberal Arts Dean’s Office
Search Progress
Future Action Items
- Community feedback analysis
- Writing final report
In Progress
- Interviewing finalists
Completed
- Finalist selection
- Semi-finalist selection
- Interviewing semi-finalists
- Planning finalist interviews and stakeholder meetings
- Applications review
- Recruitment
- Position description
- Prospectus
- Candidate criteria matrix
- Soliciting feedback on position description from CLA
- Search committee charged
5,000+
graduate and undergrad students
$55M
in annual expenditures
$58M
in private giving since 2017
$5M
in external research funding in 2023
Liberal Arts at CSU
With more than 500 faculty and 120 staff, the College of Liberal Arts fosters a broad and diverse community of arts, humanities, and social science scholars who study the cultural, social, environmental, and historical context in which we live. Our students and faculty share a commitment to the well-being of the human community, the natural environment in which we live, and the inspiration of the human spirit. Together, we provide world-class research and creative activity, innovative teaching and learning, and impactful engagement with the campus and community.
We advance the University’s reputation through excellence in our own disciplines and through collaboration in key institutional academic priorities such as water, sustainability, energy, environment, food, and climate. The 2023-24 academic year focused specifically on democracy and the many ways our disciplines approach this key topic.
Producing more than 200,000 student credit hours each year, we educate CSU undergraduate students, regardless of major, through the All-University Core Curriculum (AUCC).
Our external research productivity, measured by external dollars, has tripled in the last six years, and recent investment in research administration is aimed at increasing the number of faculty engaged in funded research overall.
About Colorado State University
Colorado State University is one of the nation’s top public research universities and an institution on the rise. CSU is committed to inclusive excellence and to upholding our Principles of Community. In the last decade, CSU has produced record enrollment, built on all-time highs in student diversity and student success; record fundraising far outpacing ambitious goals; groundbreaking research driven by a highly productive faculty; a campus revitalized by a transformational building campaign; and, perhaps most important, an unrivaled learning environment where nine of 10 recent graduates say they would choose CSU again and rate their education as excellent. We also are extremely proud that CSU has been recognized repeatedly as being among the most sustainable higher education institutions in the world. In 2023 we earned our fourth consecutive Platinum rating in the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Rating System (STARS), and we were the first university to earn four and the first-ever institution to receive a Platinum rating. To learn more, visit about.colostate.edu.