Ohio University will bid goodbye to another administrator this summer when the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences leaves for Brigham Young University.
Ben Ogles announced that he accepted a position as dean of the College of Family, Home, and Social Sciences at BYU in a department-wide email Friday. He will begin working there July 1.
“(Ogles) has led a large and complex college with great integrity and a true appreciation for the important role of the liberal arts and sciences at a public university,” said Executive Vice President and Provost Pam Benoit in a statement. “Ohio University has been the beneficiary of his thoughtful leadership. His alma mater has chosen wisely and well.”
OU hired Ogles in 1990 as an assistant professor of psychology, according to his personnel file. He was promoted to associate professor and then full professor by the 2002-03 academic year. In 2005, he was offered a one-year term as interim dean of the College of Arts and Sciences by then-provost Kathy Krendl, and in 2006, he was named the permanent dean of the college. His current salary is $191,900.
“One of the hallmarks of (Ogles’) term as dean has been the invaluable partnerships that he fostered across the university with other colleges and academic units,” said Ann Fidler, Benoit’s chief of staff, in an email. “From projects ranging from retention efforts to the professional development of faculty leaders, Dean Ogles has made any number of academic improvements possible across the university.”
Ogles received a bachelor’s degree in accounting from BYU in 1985 and earned a doctorate of philosophy and clinical psychology from the same university five years later.
“I also look forward to returning to my alma mater where I will have the opportunity to be closer to family,” Ogles wrote in the email Friday. “As with so many changes in life, this change will be one that is bittersweet.”
Ogles expressed the desire to continue working and making progress during the rest of the academic year. The college will be required to present scenarios regarding its proposed university budget reduction of $2.65 million by the end of the month.
The university has not yet made decisions about who will serve as interim dean or how the search for the next dean will be conducted, Fidler said.
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