Cristina Goletti will join the leadership team at Ball State University as dean of the College of Fine Arts, effective July 1, 2026, President Geoffrey S. Mearns announced.
Ms. Goletti currently serves as dean and professor at the College of Performing and Visual Arts at the University of Northern Colorado, where she leads three academic schools—Art and Design, Music, and Theatre Arts and Dance—serving approximately 1,000 undergraduate and graduate students.
“Ms. Goletti is an accomplished arts leader whose experience, vision, and collaborative style make her an excellent fit for Ball State,” said Dr. Anand R. Marri, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs at Ball State. “She understands the distinctive strengths of our College of Fine Arts and the opportunities ahead, especially as we prepare to open the new Performing Arts Center. I look forward to partnering with her as we support the college’s continued growth and its contributions to our students, our campus, and our community.”
At Northern Colorado, Ms. Goletti’s work has focused on building a practical, unifying direction for the college, aligning planning and budgeting, strengthening academic and administrative support structures, and reimagining the college’s public season in ways that helped grow ticket sales by more than 45 percent during her tenure. She also has helped advance new academic programs and enrollment growth while supporting student success, faculty and staff development, and fundraising efforts.
Before joining Northern Colorado in 2021, Ms. Goletti served as chair and associate professor of theatre and dance at the University of Texas at El Paso and as chair and associate professor of the arts department at Universidad de las Américas Puebla in Mexico. Across those roles, she led curriculum development, enrollment and budget planning, faculty support efforts, and interdisciplinary and community-engaged arts initiatives.
“I am honored to join Ball State as the new dean of its College of Fine Arts,” Ms. Goletti said. “The opportunity to lead the college at a moment of growth—strengthening a shared vision, integrating the new Performing Arts Center into the academic and student experience, and deepening community partnerships in Muncie and the region—aligns closely with how I lead and with what I value most in arts education. I look forward to collaborating with Ball State’s talented faculty, staff, students, alumni, and community partners to build on the college’s strong foundation and to help shape its next chapter with imagination, courage, and care.”
Ms. Goletti is an artist, educator, and academic leader whose background spans dance, choreography, and performance/interdisciplinary art. She holds a Master of Fine Arts in dance from the University of Colorado Boulder, with secondary emphases in gender studies and somatics, and a postgraduate diploma in performance with distinction from the London Contemporary Dance School. Her scholarly and creative work has focused on dance pedagogy, interdisciplinary performance practices, and arts leadership, and she has presented and taught internationally.
Ball State’s College of Fine Arts comprises the School of Art, School of Music, and Department of Theatre and Dance. The college enrolls more than 1,600 students and is home to a wide range of academic, performance, and cultural assets, including the David Owsley Museum of Art, the Marilyn K. Glick Center for Glass, Emens Auditorium, Pruis Hall, Sursa Performance Hall, and the Brown Family Amphitheater. With the opening of its new 65,000-square-foot Performing Arts Center in Fall 2026, the college is poised to further elevate its impact as a center for artistic excellence, creative collaboration, and community engagement.
In addition to announcing Ms. Goletti’s appointment, Ball State expresses its gratitude to Dr. Seth Beckman for his leadership of the College of Fine Arts since 2019. During his tenure, Dr. Beckman helped advance student success, support faculty and staff, strengthen interdisciplinary collaboration, and help lead key philanthropic priorities, including the development of the new Performing Arts Center. He will return to the Ball State faculty on July 1.
For more information about Ball State’s College of Fine Arts, visit the college’s website.