THREE UTAH STATE DEANS STEPPING DOWN

Three senior deans at Utah State University have announced that they are stepping down.

After 17 years as dean of the College of Family Life, Bonita Wyse will retire Dec. 31. David B. “Bi” Stephens, dean of the College of Business, and Bruce Bishop, dean of the College of Engineering, will step down and return to teaching in their colleges at the end of Spring 2002 semester.

National searches for their replacements will begin immediately.

Utah State Executive Vice President and Provost Stan Albrecht said the three have served the university with outstanding distinction and leadership. “They have added tremendously to the university community and the community at large,” Albrecht said. “Their combined leadership as deans amounts to more than 50 years. They have done a great job for us.”

Wyse, who has been dean of the College of Family Life since 1984, said she is proud of what has been accomplished during her past 17 years as dean.

“The college is in its prime,” she said. “We have great faculty who are dedicated to our students and who devote much of their time to cutting-edge research. We have top-notch administrators who care about the faculty and the quality of the programs in their departments, and we have terrific students who want to be here because of our high-quality programs and wonderful faculty.”

As an administrator, Wyse was responsible for coordinating the development and gaining approval for the Ph.D. program in the college with emphases in family human development and human environments. Because of this, the college has kept the high quality of faculty that is the hallmark of Family Life.

Wyse was also instrumental in beginning the online instruction program when she was one of the first administrators on campus to provide this service from her college. She has also worked with may donors over the years to secure financial backing for upgrades, remodels and new programs in the college.

Wyse has worked on many research projects since beginning at Utah State 31 years ago. Working as a nutritional biochemist, she developed research about an important b vitamin that has been used to help determine the nutritional status in a number of population studies. Wyse and her colleague Guarth Hansen were funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Institutes of Health for the development of a program titled “Nutrition Education System,” a program that explained nutrition to the general public through the use of graphics.

In the early 1990s, Wyse recognized the potential for epidemiological studies on the elderly population in Cache Valley. This resulted in the Memory and Aging study that still continues at the university in collaboration with Duke University and John Hopkins University.

“Dean Wyse has set a standard for excellence at this university and in the College of Family Life,” said Kermit L. Hall, president of Utah State. “We wish her well in her future endeavors and realize that there will be a great void to fill when she leaves us at the end of this year.”

The college graduates 250 to 300 undergraduate students a year, and the number of scholarship endowments and program endowments have risen dramatically during her tenure as dean.

“It is going to be hard to find someone so dedicated to not only her administrative duties, but to her research as well,” Albrecht said.

Bishop was selected to serve as dean of USU’s College of Engineering in September 1982. His duties were interrupted from July 1993 to 1995, when he was called upon to serve as the university’s acting provost. Following this assignment, Bishop returned to the position of College of Engineering dean, while continuing as a professor of civil and environmental engineering.

Under Dean Bishop’s leadership, Utah State instituted its highly successful high school recruitment program, Engineering State, in 1989. More than 3,000 teens from Utah and neighboring states have participated in the summer program and, as a result, many have entered engineering studies at Utah State and regional universities. Special emphasis on recruiting young women participants in the program has produced a five-fold increase in female engineering students at Utah State over the past two decades.

Outreach through USU’s Junior Engineering program provides hands-on engineering learning opportunities for nearly 100,000 elementary school students throughout Utah each year. As dean, Bishop was instrumental in securing funding from the Utah legislature this past spring for construction of a new engineering building to replace Utah State’s aging engineering laboratory and classroom buildings. This is one component of a team effort by Bishop and other Utah engineering educators to advance and integrate engineering education throughout the state at junior college and university levels.

High on Bishop’s list of priorities as dean has been strengthening ties to both the public and private sectors, to increase educational, research and funding opportunities. Bishop formed one of the first industrial advisory boards on campus, inviting senior business executives to provide advice on curriculum development. He has worked to foster international partnerships in industry, government and academia to provide teaching, study and research exchange opportunities for students and faculty.

Under Bishop’s leadership, the College of Engineering has significantly increased its endowed scholarships, established a wireless teaching and research center and built a solid base of annual giving to fund an array of engineering teaching and research projects.

Bishop credits an extraordinary faculty and well-motivated students for Utah State’s impressive success rate on national engineering standards exams. More than 90 percent of Utah State graduates pass the exams on the first try; the national average is 55 percent.

“Through the years, we’ve had a solid, stable group of outstanding leaders and faculty within the College of Engineering,” said Bishop. “It’s really been a team effort.”

Bishop said he looks forward to returning to full-time teaching and research. “Teaching and research are really at the core of a professor’s heart,” said Bishop. “That’s what motivates me.”

Bishop earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in civil engineering from Utah State University in 1965 and 1966, respectively. He completed a doctoral degree in civil engineering at Stanford University in 1970. From January to September 1971, Bishop served as a captain with the Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV) in Saigon.

“Bruce has brought energy and humility to his successful tenure as dean of this important college,” Hall said. “Both of those qualities have served him well in forging an aggressive agenda for the academic improvement of the college and its close and highly successful engagement with the state of Utah. He leaves his successor a splendid example of how to be of the world of the academy while working in the world of the community.”

Albrecht said Bishop’s legacy is marked by his longevity and productivity.

“Dean Bishop is an institution among university deans in Utah,” he said. “His innovative and progressive thinking has helped to bring state and national recognition to our College of Engineering. We are so fortunate to have had this remarkable and talented man as a leader here at Utah State.”

Stephens has served as dean of the College of Business for 15 years. Over those years, he has led the college as it experienced tremendous growth in student numbers and as its image as a research-oriented college advanced significantly. His tenure as dean included the emergence of the Business Information Systems and Education Department as a state-of-the-art program whose student population has skyrocketed.

He oversaw creation of the Department of Management and Human Resources, which has become both academically strong and an extremely popular major for students. Stephens also led the college during its rapid expa
nsion into distance education.

When he took the job as dean, the college had one undergraduate distance education major. Now, it offers three undergraduate and two graduate degrees by satellite broadcast, and it has traveling MBA program that it takes to sites across the state and around the world. Over the last decade, 400 MBA degrees have been awarded off campus.

Stephens said some of his most rewarding memories, however, are for the relationships he has cultivated with students and faculty in the college.

“I have had an opportunity to work with thousands of hard-working students,” he said. “It was a tremendous experience for me to meet with them and help them achieve the goals they’ve set in their lives.

“The faculty, too, have been exceptional,” he said. “We’ve been able to recruit and mentor dozens of wonderful faculty who continue to experience great success in both their classroom and scholarly efforts.”

His term as dean also saw the development of the Shingo Prize for Excellence in Manufacturing, administered by the college. The Shingo Prize has risen in national and international status to become one of the world’s premier business productivity awards. Stephens also has been deeply involved in the professional accreditation of colleges of business across the country. He served a three-year term on the national accreditation committee for the AACSB-the International Association for Management Education.

“Bi Stephens has presided over one of the most dramatic and rapid expansions of business education in the history of higher education in the state of Utah,” Hall said. “He has confronted the challenges of growth with a fine sense of humor and a keen sense of commitment to his faculty, staff and students. At the same time, he has been an extraordinary servant of the university. He was and will remain a colleague valued for his judgement and good sense.”

Albrecht expressed appreciation for Stephens’ commitment for developing partnerships on campus and beyond.

“Bi encouraged faculty to broaden their scope of experience by applying training in challenging international projects,” he said. “He also championed cooperation among colleges as demonstrated by inter-college projects with agriculture and family life.

“I appreciate the way he has helped the college maintain its prominence in light of the growth and extraordinary changes in the marketplace during the past 15 years,” Albrecht said. “It has been a daunting task to adapt and keep pace with these changes necessary to keep our students competitive and marketable. Bi has done a wonderful job to ensure that this has happened.”

Hall said Utah State University today is a better place because of the leadership of these three deans.

“I hope that all of the colleagues in the university staff, students, and faculty will join in offering each of these deans heartfelt thanks for a job well done,” he said.