For the fourth time in a month, an Ohio University dean has announced his resignation.
Greg Shepherd, dean of the Scripps College of Communication, will leave OU July 1 to become dean of the University of Miami’s School of Communication. Shepherd currently earns $197,657 at OU.
Last week, Graduate College Dean Rathindra Bose and Executive Dean of Regional Higher Education Dan Evans announced they are leaving OU. Bose accepted a position at the University of Houston, and Evans is retiring. Ben Ogles, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, announced last month that he is leaving for a job at Brigham Young University.
“My decision to leave OHIO was not easily made,” Shepherd said in an email to faculty and staff yesterday. “There are opportunities at Miami that are tremendously attractive to me, but I have great feeling for our Scripps College and, especially, for so many of you.”
Shepherd has worked for the Scripps College since 2001 and was appointed permanent dean in 2006.
“The (University of Miami) School of Communication … is filled with great faculty, students and staff, and has the potential to be one of the very best schools of communication in the country,” Shepherd said in the University of Miami news release. “I was attracted to the ambition of the school and want to be a part of the future that President (Donna E.) Shalala and Provost (Thomas J.) LeBlanc envision for the university and are so successfully enacting.”
OU hopes to appoint an interim dean by the time Shepherd leaves July 1, said Ann Fidler, chief of staff to Executive Vice President and Provost Pam Benoit. A search committee will help find a new permanent dean for the Scripps College.
Shepherd’s departure will not affect the development of Scripps College’s new building, scheduled to open fall 2013, said Becky Watts, chief of staff to OU President Roderick McDavis.
“President McDavis is appreciative of all the great work of Dean Shepherd at OU, both on the academic side and with elevating the national profile of the college, and on his work with donors to increase private giving and support for the college,” Watts said.
In March 2008, OU announced that the Scripps College received a $7.5 million donation to turn Old Baker Center into the new Schoonover Center of Communication. The building will house all five schools in OU’s College of Communication and is expected to cost between $37 and $40 million in state funding and private donations, according to OU’s website.
Robert Stewart, director of the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism, said he wishes Shepherd the best at his new position.
“Any time you’re in transition, it creates some uncertainty, but it also creates opportunity for new ideas to come into the mix,” Stewart said.
Scott Titsworth, director of the School of Communication Studies, praised the foundation Shepherd has laid for the Scripps College.
“Certainly we’ll miss not having (Shepherd’s) vision to lead the college … but I feel like our school is in a good position moving forward, and I don’t think that one person leaving will change that,” Titsworth said.
Shepherd is the 12th top administrator to leave OU since 2004.
— Wesley Lowery contributed to this article
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