On-campus interviews for the dean of the College of Arts and Humanities position wrap up this week with the two final candidates.

Elizabeth Dunn will be on campus today and Tuesday. An open interview for members of the campus will be at 4 p.m. today in Room 4440 of Booth Library and at 9 a.m. in Room 3159 of Coleman Hall

Roger Smitter’s interviews will be Wednesday and Thursday.An interview open to the campus community will be at 4 p.m. Wednesday in Room 4440 of Booth Library.

Dunn is the interim dean of the College of Arts and Letters at Bemidji State University, Bemidji, Minn.

Before being named interim dean in 2008, Dunn was a professor and department chair in history.

At Bemidji, Dunn also served as the director of the Center for Professional Development and president of the faculty association, a faculty collective bargaining unit.

Smitter was the executive director of the National Communication Association in Washington, D.C. from 2004 to 2009. At the association, Smitter represented the needs of communications higher education programs across the country.

Smitter feels these needs are across the board for all of higher education, particularly in humanities.

“It’s that comprehensive view of things,” he said. “Many of the issues and problems they have in representing that particular discipline are across the board for all areas.”

Smitter said the public’s perception of humanities programs is skewed because it is not technical learning.

“The world didn’t recognize the importance of humanities in real life and careers,” Smitter said. “They had a preset notion of what communication is about and the same is true for all humanities.”

To Smitter, that real world application starts in the classroom but does not blossom until it is put into context.

One way Smitter has opened the eyes of his students was through a project during which students wore clothing they normally would not.

They then evaluated the difference in the way they were treated.

“For people to realize so much of what’s communicated is not done through words, not that words aren’t important, but so much can be changed,” Smitter said. “Now they have some knowledge that’s really useful.”

Sarah Ruholl can be reached at 581-7492 or [email protected].