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Candidates for CHHS dean make presentations

March 17, 2006

KALAMAZOO--The first two of four candidates for dean of Western Michigan University's College of Health and Human Services will be on campus next week to make public presentations.

Each of the candidates has been asked to address the college's future and will make a presentation in Room 1010 of the college's new building on WMU's Oakland Drive Campus. Those attending the presentations will have an opportunity to evaluate the candidates. Both talks will end with a question-and-answer session, followed by a reception in the atrium.

The first two candidates and the dates and times set for the public presentations are:

Monday, March 20, Dr. Kathleen Whitmire of Rockville, Md., director of school services for the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, 1:45 to 2:45 p.m.

Thursday, March 23, Dr. Randall Lambrecht of Germantown, Wis., dean of the College of Health Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 3 to 4 p.m.

The College of Health and Human Services launched a national search this past summer to replace Dr. Janet I. Pisaneschi, who will retire this June.

The search committee is composed of representatives from local health organizations that WMU partners with as well as WMU faculty, staff and administrators. Dr. Timothy Green, WMU dean of the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, is heading the committee.

Additional information about the candidate presentations is available from Jeanine Bartholomew in the College of Health and Human Services at (269) 387-3680.

Kathleen Whitmire has been in her current position with the ASHA since 1999. Prior to this, she was assistant professor and chairperson of the Communication Disorders Department for the College of Saint Rose from 1995 to 1999. She also has been a clinic supervisor and lecturer for the Communication Sciences and Disorders Department at Syracuse University, a speech-language pathologist for the Monroe County (N.Y.) Board of Cooperative Educational Services, a research assistant at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf and a language teacher in the public schools.

An ASHA fellow, Whitmire is a board-recognized specialist in child language and holds an ASHA Certificate of Clinical Competence in speech-language pathology. She has been involved in numerous research projects and funded initiatives, written or co-written a variety of journal articles and book chapters, and presented some 100 papers, talks and workshops.

Whitmire earned a bachelor's degree in sociology from Northland College in 1972 and three degrees from the University of Rochester: a master of arts in linguistics in 1976, a master of science in psychological development in 1991 and a doctorate in education in 1994.

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Randall Lambrecht, a professor of health sciences, has been at Wisconsin-Milwaukee since 1988 and in his current dean position since 1999. He has served the university as interim dean of the School of Allied Health Professions, director of the clinical laboratory sciences program and graduate program coordinator for the Department of Health Sciences. Before entering academia, he worked as a microbiologist for a hospital and as a medical technologist for a clinic.

Board certified by the American Society of Clinical Pathologists, Lambrecht has been president of the national College of Health Deans for the past four years and serves as chairperson of several health-related partnerships in the Milwaukee area. He has been extensively involved in funded research activities, has dozens of published abstracts and invited presentations to his credit, and has written one book as well as written or co-written more than two dozen refereed journal articles, book chapters and laboratory manuals.

Lambrecht earned all three of his degrees from Wisconsin-Madison: a bachelor of science in clinical laboratory sciences in 1976; a master of science in preventive medicine with an emphasis on epidemiology in 1982; and a doctorate in medical microbiology and immunology in 1988.

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Media contact: Jeanne Baron, (269) 387-8400, jeanne.baron@wmich.edu

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