B. Stephen Carpenter II, professor of art education and African American studies and interim director of School of Visual Arts at Pennsylvania State University, has been appointed to the position of dean of the College of Arts and Architecture. Professor Carpenter will start his new role on January 1.
Dr. Carpenter will oversee the college’s academic programs in music, theatre, visual arts, art education, graphic design, art history, architecture, and landscape architecture. The College of Arts and Architecture is currently home to 1,225 undergraduate and 265 graduate students, 200 full-time and 60 part-time faculty, and 120 full-time staff. The college is also the home of the Center for the Performing Arts, the Palmer Museum of Art, Penn State Centre Stage and Penn’s Woods Music Festival, which serve as important cultural resources and provide educational outreach programs for Penn State and area communities.
“I am eager to take on the challenge and responsibility of being the dean of the college,” Professor Carpenter said. “The college is defined by the complexity and breadth of disciplinary engagements that reside within the range of arts and design fields. It is this very complexity and breadth that renders my role as dean a desirable challenge and a logical next step, given my interests and vision for what the arts and design can offer to a large research institution, and to contemporary society at this historical moment.”
Dr. Carpenter, who joined the faculty at Penn State in 2011, is a graduate of Slippery Rock University in Pennsylvania. He holds a master’s degree and a doctorate in arts education from Pennsylvania State University.
