After a five-month search, the university has chosen Eastern’s own Mahyar Izadi as the permanent dean of Lumpkin College of Business and Applied Sciences, effective July 1.

Izadi, who came to the university in 1984, said he is honored to be chosen for the position.

“The fact that I was chosen among all applicants makes me very humble,” Izadi said.

Izadi was appointed as interim dean for the college in October when Diane Hoadley, the previous dean of the college, accepted the dean position for the College of Business at the University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire.

Izadi said serving as the interim dean was an excellent opportunity to get the feel for the position.

“It definitely helped me to understand the depth and breadth of the position,” Izadi said. “It is very difficult to fully understand the scope of any position until you perform in that situation.”

Both President Bill Perry and Blair Lord, the vice president for academic affairs, stressed Izadi did not have any advantage or disadvantage being an internal candidate.

“There are advantages and disadvantages (to being an internal candidate) because we know more about a person, but we might also know some things we don’t (want in a candidate),” Perry said. “When a person is an external candidate, you have a lot less information.”

Perry said through the dean search committee’s extensive interview process, “the playing field is leveled so the internal candidates don’t have an advantage or disadvantage.”

He added Izadi was chosen for his strong academic record and has done well on working with his constituencies in the college.

“He has been at the college a long time and has a fine way of working with people. He has some ideas about working with the college to move forward,” Perry said.

The national search began last October with advertising for the position in such venues as the magazine Chronicle of Higher Education, Mary Anne Hanner, the dean of the College of Sciences, told The Daily Eastern News on Jan. 20.

The dean search committee, chaired by Hanner, was responsible for the initial application and interview process. By November, the college had received 33 applicants for the position.

After narrowing the search down to 10 candidates, phone interviews with the applicants were conducted by the committee.

By January, the search committee had narrowed it down to five candidates and conducted on-campus interviews throughout the month of February.

After these final interviews, the summations and conclusions of the committee were passed on to Lord, who made the final decision.

Lord said the university was seeking a dean who could effectively manage the affairs of the college, provide leadership to help it achieve its mission and take it to even higher levels of achievement.

“When it came to the appointment, I had to consider the skill set of each candidate as well as their match for the needs of the college and their availability,” Lord said. “Izadi has a proven record of administrative leadership of his academic unit, the School of Technology.”

Izadi has also previously served as the chair of the School of Technology for 11 years and as president of the university and research divisions of the Association of Technology, Management and Applied Engineering.

He said his primary goal, as dean will be to advance the Lumpkin’s mission and goals within Eastern.

“My specific goals are to increase student engagement and retention, expand college’s globalization ?efforts and engage faculty to develop their collaborative scholarship activities,” Izadi said.

He added some of these initiatives will require additional resources, so he will work with university advancement and the EIU Foundation to identify and secure new sources of funding.

Shelley Holmgren can be reached at 581-2812 or meholmgren@eiu.edu?