University of Arkansas Begins Search for Honors College Dean

Provost Sharon Gaber has appointed Javier Reyes, vice provost of distance education, to chair the search committee for the new dean of the Honors College. The committee will seek a successor for founding dean Bob McMath, who has led the college since 2005 and will retire August 1.

“The Honors College has emerged as one of the crown jewels of the University of Arkansas in its first 12 years on campus,” said Gaber, the vice chancellor for academic affairs. “The college has led in creating a culture of interdisciplinary, problem-focused learning for top undergraduates and professors. We look forward to searching for a dean who can build on all that Bob McMath has accomplished.”

The committee plans to begin reviewing applications this spring. Applications submitted by April 15 will be given full consideration. More information about the position can be found at the Honors College dean search website.

“Our Honors College has been nationally recognized in a new study of the top 50 public honors colleges and programs in the nation,” Javier Reyes said. “I am confident that we will develop a very strong pool of applicants for this position.”

The search committee, drawn from honors programs across campus, includes the following members:

• Javier Reyes, committee chair
• Sidney Burris, professor of English, director of Fulbright College Honors Program
• Ed Clausen, professor of chemical engineering, director of College of Engineering Honors Program
• Gary Ferrier, university professor of economics, associate dean for undergraduate studies, and director of Walton College Honors Program
• Carol Gattis, associate dean of the Honors College, associate professor of industrial engineering  
• Padma Mana, Honors College student, Bodenhamer Fellow
• Curt Rom, professor of horticulture, director of Bumpers College Honors Program
• Ann Rosso, Campaign Arkansas Steering Committee, chair of Honors College Campaign Committee
• Nan Smith-Blair, associate professor of nursing

The Honors College was founded in 2002, when the University of Arkansas received a $300 million gift from the Walton Family Charitable Support Foundation – at the time the largest gift in the history of American public higher education. The Honors College received a major portion of this generous gift to endow fellowships and scholarships to recruit exceptionally talented students and to endow special funds to provide study abroad and undergraduate research opportunities for honors students.

Today the Honors College encompasses all disciplines on campus, and provides transformative learning experiences for almost 3,000 undergraduate honors students who work with more than 700 research-active honors faculty. The college awards from $800,000 to $1,000,000 in research and study abroad grants each year.

The Honors College is nationally recognized for the high caliber of students it admits and graduates, consistently producing Fulbright, National Science Foundation, Truman, Marshall, Gates Cambridge and Goldwater Scholars, among others, over the past 10 years. In a recent study of fifty top honors colleges in the country, the University of Arkansas Honors College ranked 3rd out of 50 on the measure of “impact on the university,” and 17th out of 50 in “Overall Excellence.”