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PULLMAN — Douglas Epperson, currently the associate dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Iowa State University, has been named dean of the WSU’s College of Liberal Arts.
Warwick M. Bayly, provost and executive vice president and provost, said, “I am very pleased that Dr. Epperson has agreed to lead the College of Liberal Arts. He has a wealth of experience that should prove invaluable in charting and following the strategic course that the college will take over the next 5 to 10 years.”
Epperson will begin his new position on Feb. 1. He visited the Pullman campus in October, as one of three finalists, and returned for a second visit in mid-December.
“I am honored to serve as the next dean of the College of Liberal Arts at such a fine institution. There are a number of reasons that I accepted the position,” Epperson said. “Primary among those was the quality of the people at WSU, because it is the people that determine the quality and culture of any college and university. Without exception, the administrators, faculty, staff and students who I met during my two campus interviews were exceptional and deeply committed to the university and Pullman community.”
Epperson said that he is particularly interested in WSU because it is, like Iowa State, a land-grant institution. “I am deeply committed to the land-grant mission, both conceptually and personally, and I believe that the College of Liberal Arts and the College of Sciences play central, though sometimes underappreciated, roles in a land-grant university,” Epperson said.
He also said he looks forward to playing a part in the ongoing process, being led by Bayly and President Elson S, Floyd, of assessing the university’s strengths and building upon them.
Epperson said the move would also bring him closer to his two daughters; one is pursuing post-graduate studies at Oregon State University and the other is an undergraduate at the University of Utah.
Epperson has served as associate dean at ISU since 2003. He is also a professor of psychology.
He served as the interim chair for the Department of Psychology from 1996-99, as the interim director of the Office of Pre-collegiate Programs for Talented and Gifted on campus and the director of the counseling psychology program, which was recently ranked first in the nation among university counseling psychology programs in regards to research productivity.
His primary research focuses on issues related to the reliable and accurate assessment of the risk of future offenses by sex offenders and he continues to do limited research in the area of women in science and engineering. He is the lead author of the Minnesota Sex Offender Screening Tool-Revised, one of the three most commonly used actuarial risk-assessment tools. He also developed a similar tool for juvenile sexual offenders.
Epperson received his Ph.D. in psychology from Ohio State University and a master’s in education psychology and a bachelor’s in philosophy from the University of Utah.
The College of Liberal Arts is WSU’s largest, with more than 3,200 students enrolled university-wide. Since former dean Erich Lear returned to the faculty in August, Paul Whitney, associate dean and professor of psychology, has served as its interim dean.
Dan Bernardo, dean of the College of Agricultural, Human and Natural Resource Sciences, chaired the search committee for the position.
