Kvam (pronounced KUH-VAHM) assumes the post July 1. Margaret Merrion, the college's dean since 1990, is leaving to take a similar position at Western Michigan University.

A national search for a new dean will begin in fall 2001, according to Warren Vander Hill, Ball State's provost and vice president for academic affairs.

The College of Fine Arts includes growing music, art, theater and dance programs and an art museum that have earned regional and national recognition.

Kvam's career in music administration has spanned more than 18 years. Before coming to Ball State, he was director of the Illinois Wesleyan University School of Music and music department chair at Whitman College in Washington.

He is serving his second three-year term on the National Accreditation Commission for the National Association of Schools of Music. He is a Sigma Alpha Iota Honorary Fellow and a member of the American Choral Directors Association, College Music Society, National Association of Teachers of Singing, Pi Kappa Lambda and Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia.

Kvam also is an associate professor of music and the music director of Muncie's Masterworks Chorale. He holds a doctor of musical arts degree in choral conducting from the University of Cincinnati's College-Conservatory of Music.

Meanwhile, distinguished music professor Erwin Mueller will serve as acting director of the Ball State School of Music for the next year. Mueller, who has been the school's associate director for several years, is the current Sursa Distinguished Professor in Fine Arts, a percussionist and recipient of the 1999 College of Fine Arts Dean's Teaching Award.

Joseph Scagnoli, director of bands and professor of music education, will become the music school's associate director.

By Ted Buck, Communications Manager