After a month-long process, the search committee appointed to fill the newly-created position of Dean of the Shackouls Honors College of Mississippi State University has selected four finalists.
The candidates are Karen Coats, MSU professor of microbiology; Venkataraman Lakshmi, professor and chair of the Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences at University of South Carolina; Larry Berman, professor of political science at the University of California, Davis; and Christopher Snyder, director of the honors program at Marymount University.
These candidates spoke to the MSU community over the last several weeks in interview sessions designed to garner feedback from faculty and honors students.
Robert West, interim director of the Shackouls Honors College, said most of the dean candidates have talked about the need to help MSU students apply for prestigious national and international scholarships like the Rhodes scholarship.
“This is an area in which more MSU students should be competing,” West said.
He also said most candidates have expressed interest in continuing to support and expand undergraduate research and increasing honors students’ exposure to international issues through study abroad programs and on-campus programming.
West said the dean will also work to integrate more fully the honors college into the rest of the university community.
“I fully expect the Honors College to grow in influence and status,” he said.
Gary Myers, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, is the head of the search committee. Through email, he said the committee is in the final stage of the interview process. Once the interviews have been completed, the committee will meet to discuss its nominations which it will then present to Provost Jerry Gilbert.
Gilbert said, within the next two weeks, a decision could be made.
He said once he gets a recommendation from the committee, he will review his notes and the applications, talk with the president and then make an offer to the selected candidate.
The position of Honors College dean was previously a directorship. Myers said it has been changed to a deanship to reflect the role the honors college will play in the future of MSU and said most colleges within a university are autonomous and are normally led by a dean. Myers also said with a dean’s leadership, the Honors College can achieve a higher academic profile.
The incoming dean of the Honors College will have many responsibilities, Myers said. He or she must be an academic leader to students who also oversees the operations of the Honors College. The dean also mentors students as they make academic choices and set goals, Myers said.    
Gilbert said the honors college carries status and prestige which conveys academic rigor. To align with this idea for the Honors College, the dean will be initiating new and different ideas that are reflective of the Honors College distinction, such as a recognition for Honors students at graduation.
He said the Honors experience should make a significant impact on a student, and he or she should graduate with more advanced leadership skills.
“I think we have outstanding students in the Honors College, but I do not think we have challenged them to their full potential, and I think they are eager to be developed into more mature scholars,” Gilbert said.
Gilbert said the fulfillment of the Honors College dean position is the natural progression in a process that has changed the honors program to an honors college.
“I think the new dean is really going to mark the beginning of a new era for the honors college,” Gilbert said. “I’m very excited about it. I think it is going to be neat to have this new beginning.”