Contact: Joe Farris
Philip B. Oldham
Chemistry department professor and head Philip B. Oldham is the new dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Mississippi State University.
Oldham, who has filled the dean's position on an interim basis since July 2001, was selected following a national search. His appointment is pending formal College Board approval.
With about 3,800 students, the College of Arts and Sciences is MSU's largest academic unit. Its departments include art, biological sciences, chemistry, communication, English, foreign languages, geosciences, history, mathematics and statistics, philosophy and religion, physics and astronomy, political science, psychology, and sociology, anthropology and social work.
United States Army and Air Force ROTC programs, along with the Cobb Institute of Archaeology and John C. Stennis Institute of Government, also are arts and sciences units.
"Dr. Oldham comes to this position with a great knowledge of the university and the college," said George Verrall, interim provost and vice president for academic affairs. "He has served successfully as a department head and interim dean and I believe he is, without question, the best person for this job."
Oldham, who joined the MSU faculty in 1986 as an assistant professor, became chemistry leader in 1996 after serving in an interim role for two years. He is the author or co-author of more than 130 scholarly research publications or presented papers and has won more than 30 grants for research and instructional programs.
He served as chemistry's graduate coordinator for four years and was named as the department's outstanding faculty member in 1988.
Oldham received a bachelor's degree from Freed-Hardeman University in Tennessee in 1980 and a doctorate in analytical chemistry from Texas A&M University five years later.