Third Honors College Dean Candidate to Hold Open Forum

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Sumana Datta

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – The third of three candidates for the position of dean of the University of Arkansas Honors College will speak to the campus community Monday, Sept. 29.

Sumana Datta, executive director of the Honors and Undergraduate Research Program at Texas A&M University in College Station, will make an open forum presentation from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. Monday, Sept. 29, in Room 120 of the Reynolds Center. A half-hour reception will follow her talk.

All who attend the presentation or meet with the candidate are encouraged to share their feedback by completing an online evaluation form. Feedback forms for the candidates may be submitted until the survey closes Oct. 6.

Datta earned two honors degrees, in chemistry and in cellular and molecular biology, at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She earned a doctoral degree in biology at the University of California, San Diego, and then completed a postdoctoral fellowship in biology at Yale. She has taught at Texas A&M since 1993 in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics and the Center for Advanced Invertebrate Molecular Studies, with a joint appointment in the Department of Biology. She also served as an interdepartmental faculty member in the university’s genetics and neuroscience programs. From 2008-10 Datta served as assistant dean of undergraduate research, and since 2010 she has led the University Honors Program, where she is responsible for administration of four college and 19 departmental honors programs. She has also served as a visiting professor in the Department of Urology, Winship Cancer Institute, at the Emory School of Medicine in Atlanta.

Datta has won numerous awards, including the National Institutes of Health Senior Ruth L. Kirschstein Fellowship (2005-06), Outstanding Faculty Member, Texas A&M Women’s Former Students’ Network (2009), and the Service Learning Faculty Fellowship (2013). She has numerous publications and presentations that contribute to knowledge of brain development and prostate cancer, and many of her publications include undergraduate student coauthors. She has also published and presented extensively on undergraduate research recruitment and success.

The other two candidates are Naomi Yavneh Klos, director of the University Honors Program at Loyola University in New Orleans, and Jerry Herron, dean of the Irvin D. Reid Honors College at Wayne State University in Detroit. Complete vitas for all of the candidates are available online at the Honors College website.

The search committee is led by Javier Reyes, vice provost for distance education and professor of economics, and includes Sidney Burris, professor of English and director of the Fulbright Honors Program; Ed Clausen, interim department head and professor, Ralph E. Martin Leadership Chair in chemical engineering; Kirstin Erickson, associate professor of anthropology and director of Latin American and Latino Studies; Gary Ferrier, University Professor of Economics; Carol Gattis, associate dean of the Honors College and associate professor of engineering; Padma Mana, Honors College student ambassador and Bodenhamer Fellow; Mark Power, associate vice chancellor for development; Ann Rosso, Campaign Arkansas Steering Committee member and chair of the Honors College Campaign Committee; and Nan Smith-Blair, associate professor of nursing.