Todd Butler has been named dean of Washington State University’s College of Arts and Sciences following consultative meetings and discussions with university leaders, department chairs and school directors within the college.
Butler is currently serving as interim dean and will begin as dean on March 15. Since assuming the interim dean position, he has provided strong, stable and forward-looking leadership for the college.
“I appreciate the opportunity to serve as the next dean for the College of Arts and Sciences,” Butler said. “The College of Arts and Sciences is at the heart of the institution and poised for great success. I am thankful to work at a university that values our land-grant ideals, and alongside talented faculty, staff, and students.”
Todd Butler has been named interim dean of Washington State University’s College of Arts and Sciences following an open, internal search.
Butler will begin as interim dean Jan. 1, 2021. He has served as a faculty member in WSU’s Department of English since 2003, including two terms as department chair (2012-2018), and currently serves as associate dean for faculty in the College of Arts and Sciences.
As associate dean for faculty, Butler has supervised personnel matters for the college, which includes more than 550 faculty across 36 different units in the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities. He has been responsible for hiring, tenure and promotion, annual and pre-tenure review, professional leaves, leadership and professional development, and joint participation in strategic planning, budget development, and enrollment management efforts. He also has served as the college’s representative on WSU’s Modernization Steering Committee and Fiscal Health Advisory Committee.
As an immigrant and a professor of food history, Gitanjali Shahani knows more than most people about the food on their plate.
Tuesday, Nov. 10, she’ll talk about what our food choices say about us in the online discussion “Recipes and Race: A Conversation on Food and History,” organized by the Washington State University Center for Arts and Humanities, which is supported by the College of Arts and Sciences. In an email interview with Inland 360, she explained why personal taste preferences have little to do with it.
These literary and artistic descriptions of foods teach us about the idealized and invented versions of American domesticity and plenitude that we aspire to, even though it has been far removed from the reality for many Americans across centuries.
KREM 2 News reached out to local educators in the Inland Northwest, who specialize in the study of Constitutional law, to discuss the current stay-home orders. Dr. Cornell Clayton, professor of political science and director of the Thomas S. Foley Institute at Washington State University acknowledged that there is indeed a question of our own individual rights when it comes to these state-mandated restrictions.
“And as is often the case,” says Clayton, “we sometimes jump from a reasonable discussion about public policy to a constitutional argument.”
Implicating constitutional rights is not the same as violating them; and debating public policy is not the same as decrying unconstitutionality. Clayton agreed it is legal for state courts to enforce stay-at-home orders, and the federal government supports the state court systems in these restrictions.
Washington State University and the University of Idaho are teaming up to explore news ways of integrating the arts and humanities with science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine (STEMM).
More than 50 WSU and UI faculty and administrators are expected to attend a joint symposium Sept. 26–27 where they will work together to imagine new pathways for interdisciplinary research and teaching. Registration for the event remains open to any interested participants.
The symposium springs from the 2018 National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) report titled, “Branches from the Same Tree: The Integration of the Humanities and Arts with Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in Higher Education.” The study establishes the value of integrating more STEMM curricula and labs into the academic programs of students majoring in the humanities and arts, and the value of integrating curricula and experiences in the arts and humanities into college and university STEMM programs. At the same time, the study expresses a growing concern that disciplinary specialization is poorly calibrated to the challenges and opportunities of the present time.
Butler
“Meeting these challenges will require new ways of working together, something our two nearby universities are ideally located to support,” said Todd Butler, associate dean in WSU’s College of Arts and Sciences and director of WSU’s new Center for Arts and Humanities. “We will need to make connections across state lines and disciplines to provide students and faculty with the most integrative curriculum possible, setting them both up for success in the future.”
