At the end of this month, after many years of serving as chair of the Department of Mathematics, Dr. Anthony Giovannitti will be inching closer to the time when he retires and will return to a faculty position. He is looking forward to doing some research and spending more time with teaching. He has led the department through several changes in college leadership and served one year as interim dean of the college.

In addition, after serving since 2010 as interim chair of the Department of Computer Science and Information Technology, Dr. Byron Jeff will be returning to a regular faculty position so that he can focus on research and advancement in his career.

I hope you will join me in thanking each of our colleagues for their service in these roles and the contributions they have made to their respective programs and to the university.

After a successful national search, I am pleased to announce that Dr. Chaogui Zhang has joined us as chair and associate professor in the Department of Mathematics. Zhang holds the Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from University of Science and Technology of China (Hefei, Anhui, China) and his graduate degrees, Master of Science in Computer Science and Ph.D. in Mathematics are from Purdue University. Zhang comes to Clayton State from Marywood University in Scranton, Pa., where he served since 2011 as chair of the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science.

Zhang brings to us experience in program development, demonstrable support for our mission of community engagement and outreach and a history of distinguished performance in teaching and service. He is uniquely qualified to build bridges between the disciplines represented in CIMS by providing practical applications of mathematics and computing to cyber security and health care applications. I am confident that he will make a positive contribution to the growth of our existing programs and development of new programs aligned to USG and university priorities.

His accomplishments at Marywood University include development of two Bachelor of Science degrees, BS in Computer Science and BS in Information Security. In addition to the undergraduate degrees, he led the development of a 4+1 Master of Science in Information Security. He has ABET training and much experience in developing program assessment strategies. He also has broad experience with preparation of mathematics teachers, NCATE accreditation and he had a leadership role in the Middle States (equivalent organization to SACS) Accreditation Working Group on General Education at Marywood.

Because of Zhang’s strong background in computing, in the coming year he will serve on the Operating Board of the WebBSIT program. Although he is in transition this month, he is working with the Executive Director of WebBSIT to learn more about the program and become familiar with his role and responsibilities as member of the Operating Board. He will join us on campus by July 1. I look forward to him having an opportunity to meet and work with our outstanding colleagues across the campus.

We were unsuccessful in our national search for the chair position in Computer Science and Information Technology. Effective July 1, I will serve as acting chair and, in advance, I want to thank you for your patience as I navigate some of the tasks that I haven’t done in a while!

Finally, Richard Pearce-Moses, director of the Master of Archival Studies program, will be moving into a real retirement at the end of July. Later this week we will be interviewing candidates to assume this role. We anticipate that the starting date for the new program director will be Aug. 1, 2015.

Richard has been instrumental in development of this program which started with two students in January 2010. Last fall, the program had 32 students enrolled. In addition to his duties in program development and recruitment, he worked with the transition team of the Georgia Archives to the USG. The Master of Archival Studies program is currently housed at the Georgia Archives. We wish Richard well in his retirement and I hope you will join me in thanking him for his many contributions to Clayton State and the MAS program.

Dr. Lila F. Roberts, Dean