MUNCIE, Ind. – Margaret Merrion, dean of Ball State University's College of Fine Arts since 1990, will head north to take a similar position at a larger school in Michigan.

Merrion has been named the new dean of Western Michigan University's College of Fine Arts in Kalamazoo, effective July 1.

Ball State will appoint an acting dean this spring, and a national search for Merrion's successor will begin in 2001.

"It has been an honor to serve on President (John) Worthen's leadership team," Merrion said. "With Provost (Warren) Vander Hill's support, we have been able to advance the College of Fine Arts to a higher level of excellence. Collectively we have ‘focused on the fine' in the college to strengthen the quality of our programs during the past decade."

Ball State's music, art, theater and dance programs and art museum have flourished with regional and national awards, more student majors and improved facilities and technology.

Today the College of Fine Arts includes some 1,150 student majors, 92 full-time faculty members and nearly 7,000 alumni in the arts around the country.

"I'm proud that the college is positioned to attract the most talented and academically able students in the Midwest," Merrion said. "Our students study with an extraordinarily dedicated faculty, and I shall miss them."

Vander Hill, Ball State's provost and vice president for academic affairs, called Merrion an "outstanding dean" who has taken her college to a new level.

"Under her patient leadership, programs grew and students and faculty received solid support," he said. "She has represented the college and its many programs with great enthusiasm, not only on campus and in the local community but also, more recently, to a much wider international audience."

Merrion is completing a two-year term as president of the International Council of Fine Arts Deans and will be past president in 2001. She has served on the council since 1989.

An advocate for the arts, she started Ball State's annual Celebration of the Arts week in 1999 to foster more interaction among the arts disciplines and to involve more people around campus and the community in the arts.

She also initiated an annual faculty award for outstanding teaching and an annual purchase award for student artwork.

Merrion describes her new position at Western Michigan as a "new chapter of administrative life." She will lead larger, nationally accredited arts programs at a 27,000-student university that is Michigan's fourth-largest research institution.

Western Michigan's College of Fine Arts has more than 1,800 student majors and offers some 1,200 performances and exhibitions annually that reach audiences of more than 300,000. Western Michigan is home to the nationally recognized Sculpture Tour.

Merrion also will serve as director of the Michigan Youth Arts Festival, which attracts 800 of the state's most gifted high school students for rehearsals, master classes and performances.

Merrion is a music education professor who has conducted research and supervised student teachers throughout her career in higher education. She has four books and dozens of chapters and articles to her credit, and she was national chair of an instructional strategies research group for the Music Educators National Conference.

By Ted Buck, Communications Manager

(Note to Editors: For more information, contact Margaret Merrion at (765) 285-5495 or e-mail: mmerrion@bsu.edu.)