December 11, 2006

SIUC names Don Rice as interim provost

by Sue Davis

CARBONDALE, Ill. — Southern Illinois University Carbondale Interim Chancellor John M. Dunn has tapped Don S. Rice, SIUC's associate provost for academic administration, to serve as interim provost. The appointment is effective immediately.

"Professor Rice has wide-spread support in the University community and is a skilled administrator with excellent academic credentials," Dunn said. "We consulted many groups on campus including the SIUC Faculty Association, the Faculty Senate, and the Graduate Council and we are pleased that he has agreed to serve in this role."

Rice will fill in for Dunn while he serves as Interim Chancellor and will continue in his present role in negotiations with the regard to faculty contract negotiations. Dunn said additional support for the Office of the Associate Provost for Academic Administration will likely be needed in the interim and he will work with Rice to address the situation.

Rice has served in as associate provost since July 2004. Before that he was associate dean for budget, personnel and research for SIUC's College of Liberal Arts. He came to SIUC in 1991 as Director for the Center for Archaeological Investigations.

"I'm pleased to be given this opportunity," Rice said. "Tom Calhoun, the Chancellor and I have been in close contact and we share concern for enrollment and making sure we all have the resources to do what we need to do well. I view part of the Provost office's role as that of a service organization. We need to produce top-notch students by supporting our faculty as teaching scholars and mentors."

Rice has a national reputation for his expertise as an anthropologist in Latin American prehistory and ethnohistory. His research interests also include agroecosystems and domestic economies; civil and domestic architecture, art and ritual, and long-term environmental change in the tropics.

He holds a bachelor's degree is psychology from Wake Forest University (1969), a master's degree in anthropology from Wake Forest (1972) and a Ph.D. in anthropology from Pennsylvania State University (1976).