UTB/TSC has appointed a new provost, a dean for the College of Science, Mathematics and Technology and a vice president for Economic Development.

Alan F.J. Artibise will take the reins as provost in late October, according to a news release from the Office of News & Information.

In a telephone interview with The Collegian last Wednesday, Artibise said one of his priorities is students.

"The most important thing to do is achieve student success," he said "By student success I mean high graduation rates, high retention rates and being very flexible on the kind of offerings we have so that students, when they graduate, are easily transitioned into meaningful and important jobs in the community, mostly in the Valley and around the country."

Other priorities are evolving the International Technology, Education and Commerce Center--which he sees as a great opportunity for community development—by hiring the proper faculty, retaining the faculty and getting them committed to the mission of the university.

Among the challenges the university needs to overcome, Artibise said, is increasing graduation and retention rates and creating educational opportunities that are affordable to those students.

"The challenges are ones that we share with many other institutions, but there are some unique challenges in Brownsville because of the nature of the student, population area, and the location in Brownsville," he said.

Artibise holds bachelor’s degrees in history and political science from the University of Manitoba and a doctorate in urban history from the University of British Columbia.

Currently, he serves as executive dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and director of the Institute for Social Science Research at Arizona State University.

He will be paid $230,000 annually, according to Michael Blanchard, assistant to the provost/preside nt for legal services.

Mikhail M. Bouniaev was appointed dean of the College of Science, Mathematics and Technology.

Before joining UTB/TSC, Bouniaev was the founding dean of the College of Computing, Integrated Engineering and Technology at the Southern Utah University and the dean of the School of Mathematics at Moscow Pedagogical State University.

"I was born and raised in Moscow--Soviet Union at the time, right now it is Russian Federation--in the family of a university professor," he said. "My father served as professor for 40 years. Because of my father’s occupation and my mother’s great appreciation of knowledge … it was absolutely clear that I [would] become a university professor but I was not clear in what field."

Bouniaev said his immediate goal as dean is to "build an environment of excellence, an environment where people will like to work, teach, learn, serve, where exc

ellence in teaching is appreciated and recognized."

"I would like students to be deeply involved in everything that will happen in this college," he said. "I would like students to have a great influence in all of our projects. I would like students to not only learn and study in the classroom but to be involved in some project outside the classroom and to be well prepared to face all the challenges of the 21st century."

Bounaiev holds a master of science degree in mathematics from Moscow Pedagogical State Institute, a doctorate in mathematics from the Moscow Institute of Electrical Engineering and a doctor of science (post-doctorate degree) from Moscow Pedagogical State University.

Bouniaev will earn $145,000 annually, Blanchard said.

The office of the dean of the College of Science, Mathematics and Technology is located in the Science, Engineering and Technology Building 2.342.

Irv Downing was named vice president for Economic Development and Community Services.

Downing told The Collegian that his appointment is a "great occasion" to apply "some of my experience in planning and economic development and what I have been doing in the banking area for the last couple of decades."

Downing holds a master’s degree in urban planning. Before joining the university, he was regional president of the JPMorgan Chase Bank. He co-chairs the Imagine Brownsville planning effort and serves on the board of the Brownsville Community Foundation.

"One of my personal goals is to see how the university can help the community, how it can be as much involved in the community as it is with respect to dealing with serving students in an educative function," he said.

Another of his goals is to predict the upcoming trends of employment in Brownsville, so UTB/TSC can train people in those areas.

"We need to look out five or 10 years and say, ‘what could we be training folks on now? What direction can we head in now so that people have employment when those jobs become available?’"

Downing said the Economic Development and Community Services Division replaces External Affairs.

"It really is a replacement of some of the things External Affairs did," he said. "External Affairs was also involved in working with state and federal representatives on the university’s positions, on pieces of legislation, informing what our needs were, on maintaining relationships. We will not do that. What we will do is continue the role that External Affairs had with respect to the ITECC facility. We will continue to manage that, and we will continue to be proactive and out in the community to work with people."

This new division comprises Workforce Training, the Language Institute and business incubators. The workforce area has already worked with Keppel AmFELS Inc. to train welders. The Language Institute gave an intensive language course to a group of teachers from Tamaulipas, Mexico. The division also has created more than 50 new businesses in its incubators.

"People come in with an idea, they go before committee and they’re given some pointers," Downing said about the incubators. "Some of them make it, some of them don’t, but when they get in the business incubator, they can use sort of a cooperative center of office services--copiers, computers, videoconferencing capability--so they can focus on their business and as they get larger, they move out."

Downing will earn $115,000 annually.