SIUC’s College of Education and Human Services is one step closer to finding a permanent dean.

The search committee, headed by Mickey Latour, dean of the College of Agricultural Sciences, will begin interviews Thursday with Melba Spooner, senior associate dean of the College of Education at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. On Tuesday, the committee will interview Matthew Keefer, an educational psychology professor in the Department of Educational Psychology, Research and Evaluation at the University of Missouri — St. Louis. 

Spooner and Keefer are scheduled to speak at public forums in Morris Library’s Guyon Auditorium about opportunities and challenges facing the college. Spooner will speak at 1 p.m. Thursday, followed by Keefer at 2:30 p.m. Tuesday. 

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Interim Provost Susan Ford said in an email Wednesday that the committee plans to appoint one of the candidates to the position — which has been filled by interim Dean Lyle White since July — by mid-February. Whoever is chosen will begin July 1.

White said once the position is filled, he will retire after spending 27 years with the university. 

Spooner’s research includes the “continuum of teachers’ professional development and university-school partnerships,” according to her North Carolina biography. She earned a doctorate in education from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 1991. 

Keefer’s research includes strategies for “teaching professional ethics, studies of moral reasoning and character education and professional development for implementing problem-based learning programs,” according to his University of Missouri biography. He earned a Ph.D. in education from the University of Toronto in 1994.

Anna Spoerre can be reached at [email protected] or 618-536-3325.