Recommendations for the new dean of Dedman College have been narrowed down to five finalists.
 

The search committee that was assigned this responsibility began with a selection pool of almost four dozen qualified applicants. They selected nine for interviews, and chose the final five from those interviewed.
 

The final five include: Dr. William Tsutsui, the current associate dean for international studies at the University of Kansas, Dr. Richard Jensen, a chairperson of the department of economics and econometrics at Notre Dame, Dr. Caroline Levander, the Carlson Chair in the humanities at Rice, Dr. Ronald Irving, a professor of mathematics at the University of Washington, and Dr. Jacqueline Dixon, Interim Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Miami.
 

Each candidate will visit SMU on an assigned day.
 

The first will be Ronald Irving, who will be on campus on Thursday. Irving holds a PhD in mathematics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  He is the founder and executive director of the Summer Institute of Mathematics at UW, a program for talented high school students.
 

Irving’s scheduled events for Thursday include a meeting with the provost and vice president, as well as a dinner with the search committee. The SMU faculty has been invited to attend the “faculty forum,” which is the highlight of the public visit. They have also been asked to fill out and submit a review form with their opinion of the candidate.
This process will be repeated for each candidate.