Following a national search, Dr. Shearle Furnish has been selected as the founding dean of the new College of Arts, Letters, and Sciences at UALR.

His appointment takes effect July 1.

UALR Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Zulma Toro said Furnish’s appointment is exactly what the university needs at this time, having served in a similar post in Ohio for the last seven years.

“As founding and current dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences at Youngstown State University, Dr. Furnish is well positioned to provide the leadership for this newly restructured college,” Toro said.

“An experienced academic leader, he will collaborate with our administration, faculty, and community leaders to ensure that this college is the backbone of our partnership with the community,” she said.

“I am delighted to be selected for this very special position in a strategically transformed academic structure,” Furnish said.

“The assembly of an academic leadership team with several new members represents a significant opportunity to enliven the environment of teaching and learning, propel the institution, and enhance the experiences and opportunities of students and the communities of Little Rock,” he added.

Paula Casey, interim vice provost and dean of the UALR Graduate School, helped lead the campus search committee. Academic Search, a subsidiary of The American Academic Leadership Institute, assisted with the national search.

More about Furnish
Furnish was instrumental in the 2007 reorganization of the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences (CLASS) at Youngstown State University, which is today comprised of nine departments and as many interdisciplinary centers and programs. Under his leadership, the college added the master’s program in Applied Behavior Analysis and the first bachelor’s and now master’s program in gerontology.

As dean, Furnish also played various support and leadership roles including a plan for a collaborative convergence of media disciplines across two colleges and an NPR affiliate in a state-of-the-art renovated facility. During his tenure, three faculty members have been finalists for Fulbright Fellowships, and two were awarded and served in Japan and Turkey, respectively.

Furnish also contributed to a long-term strategic plan at Youngstown to address challenges in declining enrollment and retention. He chaired the committee on first-year experience and is currently chairing the committee on completion initiatives.

Furnish has also supported initiatives for distance education, international recruitment, and growth in graduate programming at Youngstown, which is already seeing improvements in student retention rates.

A professor of English, Furnish saw his most recent scholarly work placed in Traditio, an international journal dedicated to the study of ancient and medieval history, thought, and religion.

His three manuscript and analytical studies of Nicholas Love’s Mirrour, an adaptation of a Latin work devoted to the passion of Christ, grew out of research at the world-renowned Huntington Library in California. Furnish made his first visit there during a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar.

Furnish received a master’s degree in 1978 and doctorate in 1984 in English literature from the University of Kentucky in Lexington and a bachelor’s degree in 1975 in English literature from Transylvania University in Lexington.