Four to interview for fine and performing arts dean

Interviewing for the fine and performing arts dean are (clockwise from top left) Shawn Brixey, Heather Landes, Bradley Smith and Chuck O'Connor.
Interviewing for the fine and performing arts dean are (clockwise from top left) Shawn Brixey, Heather Landes, Bradley Smith and Chuck O'Connor.

Four candidates for dean of the Hixson-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts have been invited to UNL to interview for the position. Each candidate will deliver a public presentation followed by a reception at which faculty, staff, students and others interested can meet the candidate.

The candidates are Shawn Brixey, University of Washington; Heather Landes, Arizona State University; Chuck O’Connor, Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne; and Bradley Smith, University of Michigan.

Smith will be on campus Dec. 1-2. His presentation will be from 3:30 to 5 p.m. Dec. 2 in the Steinhart Room at the Lied Center for Performing Arts.

Smith has been a faculty member at Michigan since 1999 and was promoted to professor in 2010. Since 2004, he has served as associate dean for creative work, research and graduate education in UM’s School of Art and Design. Educated as a medical illustrator, Smith was a research assistant professor with UM’s department of radiology from 1999-2003. Prior to joining Michigan, Smith was a research associate (1988-1992) and research assistant professor (1992-1999) at Duke University. He holds a B.U.S. in art and biology (1980) from University of Utah; an M.A. in medical illustration (1983) from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine; and a Ph.D. in anatomy (1988) from Duke University.

O'Connor will be on campus Dec. 5-6. His presentation will be from 3:30 to 5 p.m. Dec. 6 in the auditorium of the Sheldon Museum of Art.

O’Connor is dean of the College of Visual and Performing Arts at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne, a post he’s held since 2008. Prior to assuming the deanship, O’Connor was chair and executive director of the department of theater at the Nevada Conservatory Theatre from 2003-2008 at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He was a professor in UNL’s department of theater arts from 1993-2003 where he co-founded an interdisciplinary program in film and new media. He held a position at the University of Arizona before joining UNL. He holds an M.F.A. (1984) from the University of Southern California and a B.A. (1979) from California State University-Northridge.

Brixey will be on campus Dec. 8-9. His presentation will be from 3:30 to 5 p.m. Dec. 9 in the auditorium of the Sheldon Museum of Art.

Since 2009, Brixey has held the Floyd and Delores Jones Endowed Chair in the Arts at the University of Washington. He directed the university’s Center for Digital Arts and Experimental Media and its Center for Advance Research Technology in the Arts and Humanities from 2006-2009 and was co-founder and associate director of the former from 2002-2006. He has held positions at University of California, Berkeley; San Francisco State University; University of Kentucky; University of Michigan; and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He earned a B.F.A. (1985) from the Kansas City Art Institute and an M.S. in Advanced Visual Studies (terminal degree, 1988) from MIT.

Landes will be on campus Dec. 12-13. Her presentation will be from 3:30 to 5 p.m. Dec. 13 in the auditorium of the Sheldon Museum of Art.

Landes is a faculty associate in the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts at Arizona State University where she has been associate dean since 2009. She has been at ASU since 2004 as associate dean, assistant dean and director of enrollment and student success in the former Herberger College of the Arts. From 1987-2004, she was affiliated with Northwestern University School of Music, where she was assistant dean from 1999-2004. She holds a bachelor of music in flute performance (1986) from University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign School of Music, a master of music (1987) from Northwestern University and a Ph.D. (2009) from Loyola University of Chicago School of Education.

For more information about each candidate, go to http://go.unl.edu/fpadeansearch.