| |||||||||
 |  |  |  |  |  |  |
 |
 |
 |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
|
|
||
|
Elon's newest deans, Steven House and Paul Parsons, say they are eager
to spend more time in the classroom as they settle into their new roles. |
||
Steven House feels like a storyteller. In his role as dean of Elon College, the College of Arts and Sciences, House says his job is to tell the story of arts and sciences at Elon. He wants to make sure that all the players, from students to faculty, have a good set to work from, whether classrooms or labs. And he wants to be sure that all of the players are effective in their roles, from writing to performing. House spent the summer checking the set, meeting the actors and bringing the pieces together. "The role of the dean is to bring together all the stories and tell the community, to promote the centrality of arts and sciences," he says. 
Although House has many goals for this position, he says the most important is to be supportive of the 17 academic departments that compose the college. "In order to be supportive of the faculty, you have to know the faculty, who they are and where they are going," he says. House comes to Elon from Seton Hall University, where he was associate dean of the college of arts and sciences, director of health professions and a biology professor. He started physical therapy, physician's assistant and athletic training programs at Seton Hall. He also managed a $15 million budget. While House views the move to dean as a natural progression, he wants to retain the qualities of an approachable faculty member. The door to his office in Alamance 213 is "always open," and House says he enjoys meeting faculty members and learning about their jobs. "Everyone wants to meet the new dean, and for a science professor it's great to talk to all these people," he says. House says mentoring students is what he enjoys most about working in higher education. After he gets settled in his job as dean, he would like to teach one class a semester. "This will be the first time in 14 years that I haven't taught," he says. |
Paul Parsons wants to show off Elon's School of Communications. "People will go bug-eyed when they see this place," says the founding dean of the school.  One of Parsons' goals is to raise national awareness of Elon's communications school by bringing industry professionals to Elon. "My colleagues in journalism and broadcasting will be amazed at what's happening at Elon once we bring them to campus," he says. "We really have a good thing -- now let's get the word out!" Parsons came to Elon after 16 years at Kansas State University, where he was journalism head. He learned about the deanship at Elon while serving as a visiting professor at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. After studying Elon's Web site, he knew Elon was a place he wanted to be, but he was committed to return to Kansas the following year. Elon extended the dean search a second year, so the position was still open when Parsons was eligible to apply. He joined Elon in July. Parsons says he is amazed at the amount of planning at Elon. Before he moved his family to North Carolina, Parsons twice flew from Kansas to attend planning retreats. "This is an institution that plans far ahead," he says. "It has goals and visions." In his first year, Parsons is leading the school's faculty through curriculum reform to emphasize a common core and to have conceptual and skill classes work in tandem. "In our field, we want our students to have a broad arts and sciences background," he says. "We don't want to be viewed solely as a professional school." Parsons also is seeking to build the school's endowment, explore the possibilities of accreditation and develop a graduate program. Parsons also will teach Media Law and Ethics during Winter Term. "I do believe that the dean should be in the classroom and advising students," he says. "I love teaching. Teaching is first and foremost what a faculty member does." |
|