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Jeremy Craig
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Office of the Provost
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ATLANTA—Nicolle Parsons-Pollard, Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs at Georgia State University, today (May 25, 2023) announced the appointment of faculty to three key leadership positions at the university’s College of the Arts, including the college’s interim dean and interim associate dean, and the permanent director of the Ernest G. Welch School of Art and Design.
- Chester Phillips, Director of the School of Music, will serve as interim dean of the college from July 1, 2023 through June 30, 2024, during the American Council on Education (ACE) Fellowship of Dean Wade Weast. While serving as interim dean, Phillips will continue in his role as Director of the School of Music, supplementing his leadership team by appointing Stuart Gerber as Interim Assistant Director for Faculty Affairs, assisting with the management of daily operations.
- Susan Richmond, Associate Director of the Ernest G. Welch School of Art & Design, will become the Interim Associate Dean for the College of the Arts, effective July 1, 2023 through June 30, 2024. Welch School of Art & Design Director Michael White will announce his plans for the appointment of Susan’s replacement in the near future.
- Michael White has been appointed as permanent director of the Welch School after serving in an interim capacity. He previously directed the school from 2012 to 2018.
“As Georgia State pursues creative excellence in its mission and as a hallmark of its identity as part of Atlanta’s arts and culture, the College of the Arts is critical to achieving our institution’s strategic goals,” Parsons-Pollard said. I am confident that under the leadership of these outstanding faculty members, we will keep our forward momentum.”
Leadership
Chester Phillips
Phillips joined the Georgia State faculty in 2009. In his most recent university-level role, he served on the committee responsible for crafting the new strategic plan which includes innovation in research, scholarship, and creativity as one of the university’s foundational pillars.
Prior to his current appointment as the Director of the School of Music, Phillips served as the founding director of the Panther Band and Associate Director of Bands at Georgia State. The Georgia State Panther Band received several honors and accolades including participation in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in 2014, performing in the Pepsi Super Bowl LIII Halftime show in 2019, marching in the 57th Presidential Inaugural Parade in 2013, a national top-ten honor by the College Band Directors National Association (CBDNA), selection by the Southern Division of CBDNA for outstanding performance in 2012, 2016, and 2020, and participation in the 2022 Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, Calif.
Susan Richmond
Richmond joined the Georgia State faculty in 2003. Her research and teaching focus on material histories of art and visual culture in the United States since 1945, with a specific emphasis on feminist historiographies and the intersections of art, gender, and labor.
Her first book, Lynda Benglis: Beyond Process, was supported by a Georgia O’Keeffe Research Center for American Modernism Fellowship and received the SECAC (formerly the Southeastern College Art Conference) Award for Excellence in Scholarly Research and Publication. Richmond has been widely published in multiple journals, and in 2021 organized an exhibition of work by internationally acclaimed artist Diana Al-Hadid for the Welch Galleries at Georgia State, with support from a Center for Collaboration and Innovation in the Arts (CENCIA) grant and a Georgia Humanities Grant.
Michael White
White first came to Georgia State in 2002. Nationally certified in his fields, he is a registered architect and interior designer in the state of Georgia. He joined the university following an extensive national career in interior architectural practice, most notably as Studio Director of the Atlanta office of Gensler—the nation’s largest interior architecture firm.
His more than 20 years of professional experience in commercial interiors include more than one million square feet in projects for national clients including Aetna, the McDonald’s Corporation, Bank of America, BlueCross BlueShield, GTE, and Atlanta’s own legal powerhouse, King & Spalding.
White recently concluded a four-year project as co-principal investigator on two STEAM-centric grants with Atlanta’s innovative Drew Charter Schools sponsored by the Georgia Governor’s Office of Student Achievement and the Goizueta Foundation. Outcomes of that work yielded online professional development modules in art and design, in addition to co-authored articles on the design and implementation of STEAM-centric professional development opportunities for K-12 teachers.