6.23.23

Shockers retire from university deanships after exceptional careers

Wichita State salutes two truly exceptional Shocker university deans as they retire from Wichita State: Rodney Miller, dean of the College of Fine Arts, and Kathy Downes, dean of University Libraries.

Kathy Downes arrived at Wichita State in 1979 armed with a bachelor’s degree in biology, physical sciences and library sciences from Mississippi University for Women and a master’s degree in library sciences from Kentucky University, ready to start her career as a biomedical librarian at University Libraries. She thought she would stay at WSU for a couple of years.

She plans to retire in early September after more than four decades of playing key roles in Wichita State’s ongoing development of academic library services. After a stint as interim dean of University Libraries in 2016, she was named dean, a position she describes as simply “a privilege.” She also coordinated two major Ablah Library facility expansions and worked on numerous enhancements to Ablah’s learning spaces and services, including the E.K. and Kathlien Edmiston 24-Hour Study Room and the Milton A. and Dawn P. Messinger Digital Scholars Commons.

Presented the UP Senate President’s Distinguished Service Award in 2010, Downes says she’ll miss working on campus, but is looking forward to traveling, spending more time with family, taking classes and more community engagement. “There also will be those less glamorous activities such as house repairs, decluttering, and all those other pesky projects that never seem to get done on the weekend.”

An ace performer on some of the world’s finest operatic stages and an avowed advocate for fine arts education, Rodney Miller takes a bow this spring after his 19th year as dean of Wichita State’s College of Fine Arts (CFA). “My career highlights here at WSU come with the caveat that the pronoun I would have to use is ‘we,’” Miller says as he reflects on his years as CFA dean. “Everything that was accomplished during my tenure was accomplished because there were excellent colleagues in place who did much of the work to reach specific objectives.”

He counts four college-wide achievements as among the most notable and professionally fulfilling of his career. The first is the addition, in 2019, of a fourth school, the School of Digital Arts, to the three – the School of Art, Design and Creative Industries, the School of Music and the School of Performing Arts – that were in place when he first came to WSU in 2004 from the University of Nebraska at Kearney, where he had accepted his first deanship in 1998.

The second and third achievements of note, he reports, are intricately connected and deeply gratifying to him as a fine arts educator. “The number of endowed scholarships and the overall level of giving to the college have increased dramatically,” he explains. “And fine arts enrollment is at its highest level in the history of the college. This year we achieved our goal of 1,000 students for the first time ever.” The fourth is more personal. “I keep thinking of things,” he says with a smile. “Another memory to add to the list would be seeing students from my early years who have now achieved honors and accolades in their respective artistic endeavors – be it on Broadway, at the Metropolitan Opera or the Metropolitan Museum of Art.”