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Foster named LAS dean
By Clayton Woullard
cwoullar@mscd.edu

Archive photo by Steve Stoner Joan L. Foster was named interim dean of the School of Letters, Arts and Sciences last week.

Joan L. Foster will be taking advantage of every opportunity she can to work one-on-one with students now that she won’t be teaching anymore.

“I am working with more faculty than before, and I really like working with faculty as well, but I will miss working with the students,” said Foster, who until Aug. 21 served as as the faculty trustee and Metro biology chair and professor.

Foster was named interim dean of the School of Letters, Arts and Sciences last week by Metro President Stephen Jordan.

Joan L. Foster took over the position from Joan M. Foster, associate provost for institutional planning. LAS is the largest school at Metro and oversees the General Studies program.

Metro Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs Rodolfo Rocha recommended Foster. According to Metro spokesperson Cathy Lucas, the recommendation was based on interviews with Foster and the two other candidates for the position, talks with the LAS chairs and the deans of the School of Business and the School of Professional Studies, a town meeting with LAS faculty, and recommendations from the campus community. Interim associate deans of LAS Ken Keller and Hal Tamblyn were also interviewed for the position.

“Dr. Rocha was also very pleased with Joan’s leadership in higher ed. She had a strong vision for LAS,” Lucas said.

Lucas said Rocha would be initiating a national search to permanently fill the LAS dean position sometime this academic year.

As her first order of business, Foster named Chicano/a Studies professor Luis Torres as interim assistant dean for student success and diversity, a position that represents a shift in the responsibilities for the LAS dean’s office and “makes more obvious our commitment to student success,” Foster said.

“Dr. Torres has a long history in higher education and is an outstanding advocate of students and multicultural education,” she said. “This shift in the position will play to Dr. Torres’ strengths and passions.”

Foster said she hopes to increase diversity in the long run, as well as the number of faculty and students in LAS. She also said she would like to see LAS play a part in forming learning communities, which are groups of students who take classes together and develop a relationship with each other.

“I think it’s really important and really good, especially when you get as large as (Metro is),” she said. “It will help a lot of our students.”

In conjunction with Jordan’s push to extend Metro into the larger Denver community, Foster said she would like to see LAS reach out to local high schools, possibly even teaching classes at the schools. This would also help in recruiting high school students by having them see Metro as an environment where they can succeed.

Going into the position, Foster said she feels LAS is a strong school that can become stronger as it continues to build.

LAS is “composed of a very strong faculty that are active learners in their own professions and their own fields, so they stay current,” she said.

While she has much to learn in her new position, Foster said, she has just as much support.

“Anytime you step into a new role and you have to learn a lot there’s going to be some anxiety, but I have a lot of support and hopefully people will forgive my mistakes,” she said.

Foster has worked at Metro for 16 years, during which she was president of the faculty senate for three years, served on committees such as the HLC-NCA Re-accreditation Steering Committee and the Strategic Planning Committee, and chaired the search committee for the provost and VPAA position this year.