Dean to leave UCO in June for Fort Hays State

Sam Royka Managing Editor

David Macey is serving as the current interim dean of the College of Liberal Arts at UCO, but he will soon pursue a new opportunity in Kansas after being with UCO since 1999.

“I’ll conclude my service as a faculty member and interim dean here at UCO in early June and will begin my work as a dean at Fort Hays State University in late June,” Macey said.

The search for a new dean is still in progress.

“The ongoing search for a new, continuing dean of our College of Liberal Arts will continue into mid-April with campus visits by finalists for the position, and I believe that the appointment of a new dean should be announced before the end of the spring semester. The new dean will take office as I leave campus,” Macey said.

He will be involved in typical planning before he leaves.

“I will be involved in all of the usual end-of-thesemester and end-of-the-academic-year assessment, evaluation, budget planning, and reporting processes here at UCO as the spring semester and the 20222023 academic year draw to a close,” Macey said. When asked what inspired the new direction, he provided a new perspective.

“I think I had always, as long as I’ve been around, imagined myself having multiple jobs. And I’ve loved every one I’ve had. It’s been an absolute joy to work here at UCO, but I think I’m ready for the next big adventure,” Macey said.

Macey said he also believes that change is a part of forward movement.

“I also think it’s healthy for institutions and for individuals to change things up every so often,” he said. “You can be inside an organization or a community for so long that you don’t have any new ideas left. And so I think I saw the time to look around and say where can I take my skills and make a valuable contribution and learn more somewhere else? So I’ve been looking around for a little while, working at state universities, you know, it’s another regional public university. Like UCO in some ways, rather different in others, so I think it will be a new set of challenges and learning opportunities and I’m excited about that, and I’m also excited to see the college of liberal arts here at UCO and UCO as a whole take some exciting new directions with a new president, a new dean, new leadership.” questions with an equal time of 60 to 90 seconds to respond.

Macey is most excited for “learning about a new set of challenges, opportunities” at Fort Hays.

“As I said, Fort Hays State and UCO have much in common, they’re also rather different. It’s a rural campus, with a very large online population and satellite campuses in other countries so I started looking to learn more about those very important and emerging parts of higher education,” he said.

During the debate, candidates Tom Robins and Ashley Bradley discussed their stances on several issues affecting Edmond, such as high density housing, transportation,, EMSA emergency response times, and homelessness. The candidates seemed to agree on nearly every topic, saying that the main difference between them was experience.

On April 4, all registered voters living within the Edmond city limits are