Anne Hogan has been appointed as the inaugural dean of Ithaca College’s School of Music, Theatre, and Dance. She will begin her position at the college Aug. 1, 2022. 

In a June 14 email to the campus community, Melanie Stein, provost and senior vice president for Academic Affairs, announced that Hogan will succeed Keith Kaiser, professor in the Department of Music Education, and Ivy Walz, who have each served one-year terms as interim dean since 2020.

In the email, Stein said that Hogan will be supported by two associate deans, Walz, from the Department of Music, and Steve TenEyck — current professor and chair of the Department of Theatre Arts —  from the departments of Theatre and Dance. 

In January, the college announced that the School of Music and the Department of Theatre Arts — which is currently located within the School of Humanities and Sciences — will be merged to form the new School of Music, Theatre, and Dance. The School of Music, Theatre, and Dance will be established July 1. 

The announcement raised some concerns within the campus community, particularly among faculty members and the administration. 

“We made the decision to bring these two distinguished programs together in order to remove barriers to cross-divisional collaborations and enhance our ability to prepare students for multidisciplinary artistic careers in the 21st century,” Stein stated in the June 14 email.  

Hogan is currently serving as the dean of the College of Communication and Fine Arts (CCFA) at the University of Memphis in Memphis, Tennessee. At CCFA, Hogan led the development of all CCFA programs and the implementation of a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee. She also founded the University of Memphis Institute for the Arts and Health. 

“Anne is an inspiring, strategic and creative leader who will bring a distinctive vision for the future while maintaining an unwavering commitment to building upon the proud legacy of our founding as the Ithaca Conservatory of Music,” Stein stated in the email. 

The School of Music, Theatre, and Dance is the third and final school to finalize its search for a dean. The search for the Roy H. Park School of Communications and the search for the School of Business have concluded.