ARHU Makes Historic Appointment

By Leah Villanueva, The Diamondback

Although the search for a permanent arts and humanities college dean has been delayed another year, university officials are touting the historic appointment of a black woman as dean as a positive step for the college. University officials announced Friday the appointment of Bonnie Thornton Dill — who has chaired the women's studies department for the past eight years — to serve as dean for one of the university's largest colleges until June 2013.

Dill will take the reins from James Harris — who is stepping down after 14 years to rejoin the university's history faculty — on August 1, and university officials said a national search for a permanent successor will begin in fall 2012.

In April, university officials announced that the six-month search for the new dean had been narrowed to three candidates from outside the university, but since then, each of the candidates withdrew for "personal" reasons, according to university Provost Ann Wylie. After consulting with officials from within the college, Wylie and university President Wallace Loh opted to appoint an internal candidate to serve for a fixed term.

Despite the delay, Wylie said she is confident the college will be in capable hands until a permanent successor is found. Dill will be the college's first black female dean, which Wylie said makes the appointment a greater achievement.

"We are very proud to have a highly qualified person such as Professor Dill as dean, and the fact that she is an African American woman attests to the fact that race and gender are not the obstacles to advancement they once were," Wylie wrote in an email. "Because we have an outstanding dean, I do not think we will be disadvantaged by waiting an extra year."

Dill will technically be the college's first female dean, although during the 1980s — when the university was arranged into five divisions rather than colleges — the arts and humanities division had a woman as provost.

Dill has been a women's studies professor at the university for about 20 years and has been recognized internationally for her interdisciplinary work in race and gender. Under her leadership, the women's studies department has risen in distinction as one of a select few in the nation to offer a doctoral degree in the field.

Dill said she believes her experiences give her a unique perspective to bring to the table as dean, noting her chief goal is to promote greater recognition for the value of arts and humanities in a world where these fields seem largely overlooked or dismissed as not bringing in as much money as others.

"I want to emphasize the importance of the arts and humanities and really help the college to illustrate clearly and even more sharply how vital we are to university education, how vital we are to the sciences and to all the other aspects," Dill said. "We have to get our message out even more fully about the value that we add to the educational experience."

And Dill said she has a strong foundation to build upon from the 14-year legacy of her predecessor, Harris, who has been widely recognized for expanding and advancing the college through budget cuts and burgeoning student enrollment.

"I hope my ‘legacy' will be seen as the improvement of the college at all levels and in all areas, and I sincerely hope that this will continue in the future under Bonnie and whoever her successor is," Harris wrote in an email. "The College of Arts and Humanities is a dynamic entity driven by real people with tremendous talent and creativity."

While Dill said she has yet to consider whether she would be interested in serving as dean in the long-term, for now she is most concerned with helping drive the college to the next level during the next two years.

"[Harris] has left the college in very good shape," Dill said. "So I can build on that and try and use what he has established and enrich the faculty and the chairs in making an even stronger case for the arts and humanities."