Academic deans and provosts from across the nation will gather next week at the University of Central Arkansas to discuss challenges facing higher education.
The 2010 National Conference of Academic Deans will be held July 29-31 at the Brewer-Hegeman Conference Center. The conference attracts 60 to 70 academic administrators annually, providing an ideal setting for informal discussions and networking.
This is the tenth consecutive year UCA has hosted the annual meeting. The theme for the 2010 conference is “Sustainablity in the Academy: Best Practices for Deans.”
The conference will focus on how universities can effectively address the environmental, economic, and social challenges the nation faces, said Neil Hattlestad, dean of the College of Health and Behavioral Sciences at UCA, who serves as conference host.
âWe will also have roundtable discussions to allow participating deans to exchange ideas about initiatives they have developed on their campuses to meet these challenges,â Hattlestad said. âWe are very pleased to have been able to host the conference for 10 consecutive years. It brings higher education administrators to UCA from campuses throughout the nation, thus increasing the visibility of our university. It also allows us to build our network of experienced administrators we can call for advice.”
Keynote speakers will be Dr. John Churchill and Dr. Nick Brown. Churchhill is the secretary of the Phi Beta Kappa Society. He was formerly vice president for academic affairs and also interim president at Hendrix College. Brown is the executive assistant for sustainability at the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville.
Program Chair for the conference is Dr. John Peek, vice president for academic services at Lyon College.
Attending the conference are provosts, academic vice presidents, deans, and associate deans from Minnesota, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Louisiana, and Arkansas.
The conference is in its 64thyear making it the nation’s oldest organization that annually offers administrative development sessions focused on the deanship.
The National Conference was established in 1941 at Oklahoma State University and remained there until 1995, when it was relocated to the University of Memphis. It was held on the campus of Texas Women’s University for two years before it came to UCA in 2001. In 2004, the organization’s planning committee voted to make the University of Central Arkansas the permanent home of the National Conference of Academic Deans.
