The University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts & Sciences (CLAS) has appointed two faculty members to the position of Associate Dean, effective January 1, 2017. Meenakshi Gigi Durham will be Associate Dean for Outreach and Engagement, and Christine Getz will be Associate Dean for Graduate Education. Both will continue their research and departmental teaching or service as they fulfill their new responsibilities.

Meenakshi Gigi Durham is Professor of Journalism & Mass Communication with a joint appointment in Gender, Women's & Sexuality Studies. Her administrative experience includes serving as Administrative Research Fellow in the UI Office of Research & Economic Development, and Faculty Associate Director in the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies. She earned her PhD in Journalism and Mass Communication from the University of Florida in 1990, and joined the UI faculty as Assistant Professor in 2000; she also had a career as a professional journalist and editor in India and the U.S. With a research focus on representations of gender and sexuality in the media, Durham is the author of three full-length books—including The Lolita Effect: The Media Sexualization of Young Girls and What We Can Do About It (Overlook Press, 2008), which garnered national and international media attention—and numerous journal and encyclopedia articles, book chapters, essays, and short stories. Her honors and awards include being named CLAS Collegiate Scholar in 2012 and receiving the 2014 Teresa Award for the Advancement of Feminist Scholarship from the International Communication Association.

Christine Getz is Professor of Musicology. She is Associate Director for Graduate Studies in the School of Music, and has served since 2014 as Administrative Fellow in CLAS. She earned her PhD in Musicology in 1991 from the University of North Texas and joined the UI faculty as Assistant Professor in 1999, after starting her career at Baylor University. She received the Baylor University Outstanding Teaching Award for tenure-track faculty, and was also a Lecturer and Director of the Collegium Musicum there. Her research interests include music, culture, and sacred music in early modern Milan, and she has published numerous essays and articles in the field. Getz is the author of two full-length books—including 2013's Mary, Music, and Meditation: Sacred Conversation in Post-Tridentine Milan (Indiana University Press, 2013), which received a subvention from the American Musicological Society—and editor of a volume of 16th-century motets for the series Recent Researches in Music of the Renaissance (A-R Editions, 2008). She was named CLAS Dean's Scholar in 2005.

CLAS Dean Chaden Djalali said he looks forward to working alongside the new Associate Deans.

"Professors Durham and Getz are outstanding scholars who have shown great promise in administration," Djalali said. "The areas they will oversee, graduate education and outreach and engagement, are crucial to our mission. With Gigi and Christine on our team, we will ensure that the College is meeting the needs of our students and our society, as well as the demands of 21st-century higher education. I could not be more pleased to welcome them to these important leadership positions, and I am very grateful for our search committee's excellent work on these appointments."

Joe Kearney is stepping away from his position as Associate Dean for Research and Infrastructure after 13 years to rejoin the faculty of the Department of Computer Science on a full-time basis, effective January 1, 2017. That change offered an opportunity for the College to assess its leadership structure, which resulted in Associate Dean for Graduate and Online Education Marc Armstrong shifting to oversee Kearney's research and infrastructure portfolio. The College, in turn, opened a search for a new Associate Dean, with a portfolio of graduate education and outreach. Durham and Getz were the finalists for that position.

The search committee organized multiple interviews with Professors Durham and Getz with varied constituencies and a public forum for each finalist. After receiving extensive feedback from the committee and other faculty and staff throughout CLAS, it became clear that the best course of action was to divide the position's responsibilities and appoint both finalists, enabling CLAS leadership to address immediate key issues surrounding graduate education and outreach and engagement.

The search committee was chaired by Professor Bob McMurray of the Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, and included Leslie Finer, Performing Arts Director in the Office of Outreach and Engagement; Dian Gottlob, CLAS Assistant Dean; Sarah Larsen, Graduate College Associate Dean and Professor of Chemistry; Vincent Rodgers, Professor of Physics & Astronomy; and Rachel Williams, Professor and Chair of the Department of Gender, Women's & Sexuality Studies.