News Service

11-18-98

Contact:
Richard Ross, Veterinary Medicine dean and search committee chair, (515) 294-1250
Anne Dolan, University Relations, (515) 294-7065

FINALISTS NAMED FOR DEAN POST AT IOWA STATE

AMES, Iowa -- Five finalists have been announced in the search for a new dean for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Iowa State University. They are Lynne Billard, university professor of statistics at the University of Georgia, Athens; John Dobson, interim LAS dean and professor of history at Iowa State; Peter Rabideau, dean of the College of Basic Sciences and professor of chemistry at Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge; Leon Radziemski, dean of the College of Sciences and professor of physics at Washington State University, Pullman; and Joseph Templeton, professor of chemistry at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

In the coming weeks, the finalists will visit campus for two- day interviews. Their visits include a public open forum in the ISU Memorial Union, at which each will discuss the role of a liberal arts and sciences college at a land-grant university. The forums begin at 4:10 p.m. on these dates:

During a second public forum, in 107 Lab of Mechanics, each candidate will respond to questions on campus diversity. The forums will be held:

Lynne Billard has been a faculty member at the University of Georgia since 1980, serving as head of the statistics department from 1980 to 1989. From 1975 to 1978, she was on the faculty at Florida State University, Tallahassee. Between 1969 and 1974, she held several visiting positions at the State University of New York, Buffalo; University of Waterloo, Canada; and Stanford University, California.

Billard is a fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics and the American Statistical Association (ASA). Her research interests include stochastic processes, with an emphasis on model building; sequential analysis, with an emphasis on hypothesis testing; and epidemic theory, including AIDS research. She chaired ASA's Committee on AIDS in 1992.

Billard received a B.S. in statistics and mathematics (1966) and a Ph.D. in statistics (1969), both from the University of New South Wales, Australia.

An ISU faculty member since 1968, John Dobson has served as interim dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences since July 1. Previously, he served as intern assistant dean of the College of Sciences and Humanities from 1987 to 1988; assistant dean of the Graduate College from 1988 to 1991, assistant vice provost for research and advanced studies from 1990 to 1991, and interim vice provost for research and interim dean of the Graduate College from 1991 to 1992. Since 1991, he has served as associate vice provost for research and associate dean of the Graduate College.

Dobson has written five books, most recently on the foreign policy of President William McKinley. Other research interests include U.S. trade and tariffs, and, more recently, international student exchange programs.

Dobson received a B.S. (1962) in history and physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge; and an M.S. (1964) and Ph.D. (1966), both in American history from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Peter Rabideau has served as dean of the College of Basic Sciences at Louisiana State since 1990. As dean, he initiated the college's first fund-raising efforts and a center for excellence in science teaching. Previously, he spent 20 years on the chemistry faculty at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis, including two years as acting department chair and five as department chair.

His current research program is the synthesis and chemistry of bowl-shaped hydrocarbons, "buckybowls Rabideau was elected a fellow in the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1997. He served for two years (1997-98) on a National Science Foundation panel that studied integrating graduate education and research training.

Rabideau received a B.S. in chemistry (1964) from Loyola University of Chicago; an M.S. in chemistry (1967) from Case Institute of Technology, and Ph.D. in organic chemistry (1968) from Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland.

Leon Radziemski has served as College of Sciences dean and professor of physics at Washington State since 1990. Previously, he was at New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, serving for five years as chair of the physics department and two as associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and director of the research center. From 1967 to 1983, he was a staff physicist and project manager at Los Alamos National Laboratory (U.S. Department of Energy). There, his projects included atomic, laser and plasma spectroscopy, and laser isotope separation.

Radziemski also is interested in reforming science education, including interdisciplinary efforts. He is a fellow of the Laser Institute of America, the Optical Society of America and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He chairs the internationalization committee and a new hire survey project for the Council of Colleges of Arts and Sciences, an organization of arts and sciences deans.

Radziemski received a B.S. in physics (1958) from College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Mass.; and an M.S. in physics (1961) and Ph.D. in atomic physics (1964) from Purdue University, West Lafayette, Ind.

Joseph Templeton joined the North Carolina faculty in 1976. He served as chemistry department chair for five years, acting associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences for two years and senior associate dean for sciences in that same college for a year.

His current research projects address reactions of coordinated ligands, and generating more Ph.D.s in applied areas of chemistry. He received the National Science Foundation's Creativity Extension Award in 1995.

Templeton received a B.S. (1971) from the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, and a Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry (1975) from Iowa State.

Former LAS dean Elizabeth Hoffman left Iowa State in October 1997. Richard Hoffmann, who also has left ISU, served as interim dean from August 1997 to June 1998. Richard Ross, dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine, is chair of the search committee.

-30-

Iowa State homepage

University Relations, online@iastate.edu
Copyright © 1997, Iowa State University, all rights reserved
URL: http://www.public.iastate.edu/~nscentral/releases/las11.18.html
Revised 11/18/98