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May 09, 2006

News Briefs

Silva leaves for St. Kate’s

On Friday, May 5, it was announced that Associate Dean Alan Silva will be leaving Hamline to take a position as a Dean of Arts and Sciences at the College of St. Catherine starting July 1, making him the last of this year’s administrators to leave Hamline. In a statement made to the Oracle on Friday, Silva said that he “really enjoyed working at Hamline both as a faculty member and as an administrator,” and that he will miss the opportunities to “finish my work on major projects that I helped to develop at Hamline, including the Bush Grant and Lilly Grant.” He said he has loved his time at Hamline, however, the chance to work in a “Catholic liberal arts college where I will be able to develop new grant projects, new opportunities for faculty in instructional technology, and new prospects for international collaboration and study” is one that he’s very excited about. Silva first came to Hamline as an assistant professor of English in 1995, left in 2000 for a position at James Madison University in Virginia, but returned to Hamline in 2002 when he was offered his current position as assistant dean of the CLA.

--Tessa Reck

New dean experienced with administration changes

When new Fernando Delgado succeeds Garvin Davnenport as CLA dean on July 1, he will enter a recently-shifted administration.

“It’s hard to replace an institution,” Delgado said in a phone interview last Wednesday of the changes.

In the past two years, president, provost (now vice president for academic and student affairs) the CLA dean, dean of students, both CLA associate deans and the dean of the Graduate School of Management (GSM) positions have or will have changed hands. Currently, two searches are going to name a vice president for academic and student affairs and the GSM dean.

As far as the associate deans go, Delgado commented in an e-mail on this trend, especially the change of the associate deans. “I have spoken with Dean/VP Davenport about appointing interims to these various roles and we will evaluate how to move forward beyond next year once I am fully on board and have had an opportunity to meet with students, faculty and staff. I appreciate President Hanson and Dean/VP Davenport keeping me in the loop but I concur with them that the folks there now are in the best position to do the interim process to help with transition and enable us to hit the ground running,” Delgado said. At the moment, Delgado has not met with the dean’s council, but has spoken with Davenport.

Delgado has experience dealing with this sort of administrative overhaul. While he was at the west campus of Arizona State University, there was a new president in 2002 and all of the academic deans and two vice provosts left; seven people left in two years.

The majority of Delgado’s administrative experience is at ASU-West, where he was the associate vice provost for academic programs and graduate studies, a position he held from July 2000 until June 2004.

His most recent administrative experience is at the University of Minnesota at Mankato, where he was dean of the College of Graduate Studies and Research.

At Mankato, Delgado was more involved with graduate students, a contrast from the student body at ASU-West and at Hamline. Delgado’s shift back to a CLA environment will be return to the undergraduate academia. However, he said he’s eager to get back into a CLA environment.

“I’m looking forward to re-engaging with students,” Delgado said.

Because of the differences between graduate and undergraduate institutions, Delgado said the most important skill he will take from his experiences is “being a part of an administration.”

--Matt Lutz

Posted by dwright at May 9, 2006 02:20 PM

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