February 13, 2009
Trustees ratify appointments of agriculture, grad school deans
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - The Purdue University board of trustees on Friday (Feb. 13) ratified the appointments of deans for Purdue Agriculture and the Graduate School.Trustees approved Jay Akridge as the Glenn W. Sample Dean of Agriculture and Mark J.T. Smith as dean of the Graduate School.
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Akridge, who had been serving as interim dean, replaces Randy Woodson, who was named Purdue's provost last May. Akridge will be responsible for administering academic and research programs in the College of Agriculture and the Indiana Agricultural Experiment Station; outreach through the Purdue Cooperative Extension Service; the college's global initiatives through International Programs in Agriculture; and will oversee a number of state regulatory services, including the Office of Indiana State Chemist and Seed Commissioner and the Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory.
He has been director of the Purdue and Indiana University MS/MBA in Food and Agribusiness Management program and was the James and Lois Ackerman Professor of Agricultural Economics. Previously Akridge served as the university's interim vice provost for engagement and was director of the Center for Food and Agricultural Business, which provides professional development and research for the food and agricultural business.
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Smith's appointment will be effective Feb. 17. He also will continue to serve as the Michael J. and Katherine Birck Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
He replaces John Contreni, who now serves as the Justin S. Morrill Dean of the College of Liberal Arts. Smith came to Purdue in 2003 from Georgia Tech, where he was executive assistant to the president. He became the first African-American to head a Purdue engineering school when he was hired in 2003. While at Georgia Tech, Smith led the formation of a university coalition called EMERGE, or Empowering Minority Engineers-Scientists to Reach for Graduate Education. The program used technology and outreach to encourage minority students to pursue graduate degrees in engineering and science.
Smith received his bachelor's degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his master's degree and doctorate in electrical engineering from Georgia Tech. He joined the faculty at Georgia Tech in 1984.
Purdue Agriculture includes 11 academic and two service departments with 315 faculty, 558 research/professional staff, 281 clerical and technical staff, and a total of 271 Purdue Extension educators located across the state's 92 counties. Total enrollment within the college is 2,535 undergraduates and 491 graduate students.
Since its inception in 1929, the Graduate School has conferred more than 58,000 master's degrees and more than 20,000 doctoral degrees in more than 70 areas, including 10 interdisciplinary programs. Purdue has 7,427 graduate students on its West Lafayette campus, which is nearly 19 percent of its 40,090 enrollment. Purdue graduate programs in the colleges of Engineering, Liberal Arts and Science; the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences; and the Krannert School of Management were ranked among the nation's best in the March 2008 U.S.News &World Report rankings.
Writer: Clyde Hughes, (765) 494-2073, jchughes@purdue.edu
Source: Randy Woodson, woodson@purdue.edu
Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu
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