English Chair Evans takes position at Oklahoma City

Dr. David Evans, chair of the Department of English, Speech & Journalism, is leaving after five years of directing Georgia College & State University’s largest department.

Evans decided to move to Oklahoma after being offered a position as Dean of the Petree College of Arts and Sciences at Oklahoma City University. Evans will make the move in July after teaching his last class in the Summer I semester.

“It is a very good opportunity for me to advance to the next administrative level,” Evans said. “There are a number of interesting challenges at OCU, and I really liked the people I met when I interviewed.”

Evans said another reason he chose to accept the job offer was because of better prospects for his wife and the proximity to her family.

“I think there will be some strong opportunities for my wife who is an artist, in the fairly big city,” Evans said. “Her family is spread all over, but the main gathering places are Albuquerque and Omaha, and we’ll be within an easy day’s drive of both of those. I come from a small family myself, so being close to her family is compelling for both of us.”

Evans was recommended for the dean position by OCU’s Vice President of Academic Affairs Dr. Bernie Patterson through a faculty search committee. Patterson is also the former dean of GC&SU’s College of Arts and Sciences.

“The committee has worked continuously since October to find the very best person for the job,” Patterson said. “I would rank Evans as a top-level department chair and a leader at the university. OCU and the College of Arts and Sciences are truly fortunate to be getting Evans. He is an outstanding administrator, a student-centered and faculty-friendly leader, man of integrity and genuinely a good person. I am very excited about the opportunity to work with him again.”

In addition to being chair at GC&SU, Evans has taught one or two courses each semester for the past five years, mostly in Renaissance and British literature.

“As chair, I’ve had a lot of different duties and experiences,” Evans said. “With the invaluable help of [the department secretary] Melinda Martin, I work out the course schedules, evaluate faculty annually, allocate raises, supervise hiring, manage the department budget and help students solve problems and mediate disputes among students and faculty.”

Evans said he is impressed with the teamwork and progression the Department of English, Speech & Journalism has shown in the past five years.

“We’ve added the Master of Fine Arts Program in Creative Writing and the B.A. in Rhetoric. There are also about 11 more full-time faculty here, and we offer nearly twice as many courses,” Evans said. “We’ve more than doubled the number of courses targeted to our majors in all our programs and doubled the number of majors altogether.”

Beth Rushing, Dean of the School of Liberal Arts & Sciences, said the selection process for finding an interim department chair will take approximately one month.

“The process will begin pretty soon. I want to hear from the department,” Rushing said. “Nobody has stepped forward to say they’d like to be an interim. I have some ideas and Dr. Evans and I have talked a little bit about some ideas, but I haven’t talked to anyone about being an interim yet.”

Rushing said there is a strong possibility that a few co-chairs will be hired to replace Evans next year, but nothing is definite.

“Having two or maybe even three co-chairs is something that worked very well before in departments,” Rushing said. “That’s the direction I’m leaning, especially for a department such as this one that is diverse and has many different programs.”

According to Rushing, if multiple co-chairs are brought in, it would only be temporary.

“It wouldn’t work long-term, but it would work just fine for short-term and especially for such a cohesive department such as this one,” Rushing said.

The selection process will incorporate both internal and external searches.

“In general, the approach we’ve taken for department chairs has been to have open searches, and also do a national search,” Rushing said. “In doing that, we’re not ruling out faculty from here to apply, and we allow other people to apply, as well. I don’t have any doubt that we’ll make the right decision when it comes time, but it’s much better to give these things time and not to jump in a new situation with someone right away.”

Rushing chaired the search that brought Evans to GC&SU and said she is sad to see him go, but is confident he will do a great job at OCU.

“Evans has been an incredible department chair and is lots of fun to work with,” Rushing said. “It’s really sad that great people have to leave, but being great is what got him the job in the first place.”

President Dr. Dorothy Leland agrees.

“The GC&SU community will miss Evans, who has led the university’s largest department with great skill and distinction,” Leland said. “His new position is a well-deserved opportunity for new leadership challenges, and I know that many others join me in wishing him the very best.”

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Mar 25 2005. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry