Arts and Sciences | Bell TowerOctober 15, 2024

New Dean Returns to Academic Roots

Dr. Toni Alexander has a clear vision about what college should be.

“This is where you learn to learn,” Alexander told students and their parents at Mane Event, UAFS’s one-day orientation session, this summer. “It is our job is to push you. … If you haven’t been pushed, we haven’t done our job.”

As the new dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, Alexander said, “We will not push you to think a certain way but to think critically about things. We want to make you resilient and adaptable.”

Alexander’s vision of a college education is tied to her experiences as a student and as professor and administrator in a variety of university settings.

As a high school graduate, after living one year in Finland, Alexander attended California State University at Stanislaus, a commuter college with about 5,000 students. Although she had been accepted by the University of Southern California, she chose the state college because, with a variety of scholarships and awards, she could graduate without debt. Going to the far more expensive university didn’t make sense for someone who didn’t really know what she wanted to do when she grew up.

Looking back, she recognizes what a good choice it was: “Every one of my professors knew me.” That personal relationship with her professors meant she could learn more than class facts from them.

She started taking social science classes thinking she’d go into high school teaching. Then an advisor asked her if she’d considered graduate school. She began taking physical and human geography classes and discovered: “This is everything I like and everything I see around me.”

“If I had gone to USC, I wouldn’t have found my discipline because I wouldn’t have had professors who knew me.”

From Stanislaus, she went to Louisiana State University for her master’s and doctoral degrees. After holding a visiting professor position at Kansas State University, she zeroed in on two job offers, one from Minot State University in North Dakota and the other from Auburn University in Alabama.

She spent nine years at Auburn, gaining tenure and taking on some administrative roles. It was perhaps predictable that she chose Auburn, but it was not a choice without regret. Some part of her wondered what would have happened if she’d chosen the smaller state college with faculty who knew their students by name.

She eventually realized that although Auburn is a public land-grant university, it had wealthy students who were nothing like her. When she started at Auburn, the largest general education classes had 100-150 students. By the time she left, those sections had 300 students. There’s no way to know students by name in classes that big.

When a chance to join Southeast Missouri State as a department head arose 10 years ago, she took it. While she was there, university enrollment decreased from about 14,000 to 9,000 as colleges nationally saw declining numbers. A reorganization on campus left her restless.

The opportunity at UAFS was well-timed.

“Being able to return to a College of Arts & Sciences at a student-centered institution like the University of Arkansas - Fort Smith feels like returning to my academic roots after many years away,” she said when her appointment was announced. “Not only does this opportunity allow me that chance to support, collaborate with, and learn from students, faculty, and staff across the heart of the institution, but also contribute to the larger region.”

Leading a college whose classes, faculty, and students are spread across the campus encourages Alexander to look for formal and informal ways to connect. “I get my big old candy bag and roam the halls,” she said.

She intends to continue reaching out until connections are second nature. “We are one college,” she said.

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