NWC News Desk

NWC brings four vice-presidential candidates to campus starting April 10

Posted April 4, 2012
By NWC News Desk

POWELL, Wyo. - Beginning Tuesday, April 10, Northwest College will start interviewing candidates for its vice president of academic affairs position.

Four candidates from the original pool of 55 applicants will come to Powell for two-day on-campus interviews during the coming month. They’ll travel from Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Missouri and South Dakota.

The first candidate scheduled to be interviewed is Evonne Carter, currently an interim vice president of the Oak Creek Campus of the Milwaukee Area Technical College in Wisconsin.

During the course of her career, Carter has served as dean of liberal arts and science, interim provost, associate provost and director of research and planning. She has been a longtime faculty member in English and communications, as well as a consultant-evaluator for the Higher Learning Commission.

Carter holds a bachelor’s degree in elementary education from Carroll College in Wisconsin. Her graduate degrees, both granted from the University of Wisconsin, include a master’s in curriculum and a doctorate in urban education.

She will be on the NWC campus Tuesday and Wednesday, April 10 and 11, followed immediately by Ricky Streight, who’ll be interviewed Thursday and Friday, April 12 and 13.

Streight chairs the math department at Oklahoma State University-Oklahoma City. Previously a faculty instructor (colonel) at the United States Army War College in Pennsylvania, he has served as vice president of academic affairs at Rocky Valley College in Illinois and at Carl Albert State College in Oklahoma. He was dean of academic affairs at Ivy Tech Community College in Indiana.

In addition to a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Central (Oklahoma) State University, Steight holds multiple master’s degrees: one in computer science from West Coast University in California, another in strategic studies from the U.S. Army War College, and a third in mathematics from Indiana State University. His doctorate in higher education was granted by the University of Oklahoma. 

Christopher Dyer will visit campus Thursday and Friday, April 19 and 20.  Currently dean of academic affairs and a professor of anthropology at Missouri State University, West Plains, Dyer has also served as dean of the college of arts and sciences at Our Lady of the Lake University in Texas and at Mount Olive College in North Carolina. He’s been a faculty member and dean of strategic initiatives for the School for Field Studies, a private organization devoted to international experiential education in the environmental sciences.

His academic credentials include two bachelor’s degrees, one in anthropology and another in fishery biology, from the University of Arizona; two master’s degrees, one in marine biology from the University of Alabama and the other in anthropology from Arizona State University; followed by a doctorate in anthropology, also from Arizona State. 

The last candidate, Gerald Giraud, will be in Powell Monday and Tuesday, April 23 and 24. He is vice president for instruction and chief academic officer for Oglala Lakota College in South Dakota, where he has also served as director of assessment and institutional research.  Prior to that he was an associate professor at Nebraska Methodist College in Omaha, where he was involved in nursing education at the undergraduate and graduate levels.  Giraud has a background in statistics, research methods, and assessment, and is a consultant-evaluator for the Higher Learning Commission.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology, sociology, and political science from Regents College of the State University of New York, a master’s in educational psychology and a doctorate in cultural and psychological studies from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Northwest College anticipates filling its vice president for academic affairs position by the beginning of fall semester. Ronda Peer, dean of extended campus and workforce, is currently filling the position, which opened when Sher Hruska resigned in 2010.