Starting July 1 this year, Point Park will have a new dean of the School of Arts and Sciences, Becky Spritz. Spritz is taking the open position left by the previous dean, Josie Brown, who departed last summer for a new position in Connecticut.
Provost Shari Payne said the hiring process for the new position started with the formation of a committee led by Bernie Ankney, dean of the School of Communications.
Faculty members from the School of Arts and Sciences were also on the committee with Ankney. The committee went through multiple steps to find the right candidate.
“[The position is] promoted nationally on different websites and different publications,” Ankney said. “Then it’s a matter of [starting] with maybe a pool of 80 people, and you try to make sure you get a good deep pool with strong candidates before you enter in the kind of later parts of the pool where you are interviewing candidates via zoom or in person.”
After the interviews, the committee recommended to senior leadership which candidate they believe should be brought to campus, Ankney said.
Spritz stood out among the other candidates for multiple reasons, according to Ankney.
“Becky was a very strong candidate because of her work experience. She worked as, I think it was, a senior associatesdean for arts and sciences,” Ankney said. “Later she was promoted to associate provost and had a bunch of accomplishments in those roles.”
These past positions at Roger Williams University gave Spritz important skills needed for the position of dean.
“Arts and sciences is such a diverse collection of disciplines,” Payne said. “Dr. Spritz has experience as an assistant provost that allowed her to collaborate with a vast cross-section of disciplines.”
Overall, deans at Point Park have multiple tasks that fall under their job umbrella.
Ankney said the dean is the chief academic officer for their school. For example, he is the dean of the school of communication, and some of his tasks include designing and examining academic programs, recruiting new students, retaining existing students and being a problem solver.
“At Point Park I think that deans are critically important because they make sure that in those areas Point Park has a strong student-centered mission,” Ankney said.
While being a dean is a lot of work it can also be fun.
“I have the most amazing kids in the world, and I love getting to know them and their family during recruiting. Then when they decide to deposit at Point Park, I just adore having them in [the class] Media and Society,” Ankney said. “It’s just a lot of fun to see them go from that 17 [or] 18 year old who is not sure where they’re going to college or what their major is going to be to playing a leadership role in U-View 2 to 3 years later or with the Globe and WPPJ.”
