Fourth College of Liberal Arts & Sciences executive dean candidate to present Oct. 28

LAWRENCE – The fourth and final candidate for the University of Kansas College of Liberal Arts & Sciences (CLAS) executive dean position will give a public presentation from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. Friday, Oct. 28, in the Beren Petroleum Conference Center in Slawson Hall.

The presentation will be livestreamed, and the passcode is 907615.

Jeanette Altarriba will present her vision for the College in today’s rapidly changing landscape of higher education. The College is the largest academic unit at the university, and the executive dean will strategically and collaboratively lead the school in its scholarly and educational contributions.

Altarriba currently serves as the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University at Albany – State University of New York, a position she has held since 2019, first as interim dean and then as permanent dean. She spent the past 30 years at the University at Albany in numerous leadership positions.

Faculty, staff and students are encouraged to offer their impressions and observations of Altarriba online through a limited-time feedback survey. Feedback on Altarriba’s presentation is due by 5 p.m. Nov. 1. A recording of her presentation will be available the morning after the presentation on the search website until the survey closes.

Each candidate meets with Chancellor Douglas A. Girod, Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Barbara A. Bichelmeyer, senior administrators, College chairs and directors, KU deans, KU Endowment, the KU Alumni Association, university governance, graduate and undergraduate students, and the College dean’s office executive committee and administrative staff.

As dean of the University at Albany College of Arts and Sciences, Altarriba oversees the largest of all schools and departments on the campus, with 21 academic departments and over a dozen centers and institutes. She is a full professor in the department of psychology and a Collins Fellow, which recognizes faculty deemed exemplars of institutional commitment to the university.

Before this appointment, Altarriba served as the vice provost and dean for undergraduate education, a position she held for six years. She founded and directed the Center for Undergraduate Research and Creative Engagement, an entity devised to foster and develop undergraduate research opportunities to connect students and faculty to further research programs and projects. She has also served as director of the cognition and language laboratory for her entire 30-year tenure. Additionally, she served separately as chair of the department of communication and the department of psychology.

Altarriba is a distinguished scholar in cognitive psychology, particularly in the field of bilingualism and psycholinguistics. She is a co-editor of eight books, and author or co-author of more than 150 journal articles and book chapters in the areas of language processing, bilingualism, emotion, memory, perception and multicultural mental health counseling.

Altarriba earned a bachelor’s degree from Florida International University in psychology and a master’s and doctorate in cognitive psychology from Vanderbilt University. She completed postdoctoral research training at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.