Education and Human Development is pleased to announce a celebration on May 2 – “Thank You Dean Rice.”

The college will thank Dean Dan Rice for his 12 years of leadership, guidance, and vision, and wish him well on his return to teaching our students.

We will have an open house from 2 to 4 p.m. Wednesday, May 2, in the lobby of the Education Building. Help us thank him for all he has done for the College, the campus, the community, and most importantly, our students.

Rice’s last day as dean will be Saturday, June 30. He is stepping down to prepare to return to the classroom as a professor in Educational Leadership. After a one semester sabbatical, he will rejoin the department in January 2013.

“I want to thank Dr. Dan Rice for his 12 years of service as UND’s Dean of Education and Human Development,” said President Robert Kelley. “During Dan’s dozen years of leadership, faculty and academic programs in his college have flourished and have often been at the forefront nationally of scholarship. I would mention just a handful of areas where Education and Human Development faculty are having a significant impact: sports medicine, the use of gaming in teaching and learning mathematics, expanding distance education opportunities in areas such as social work, looking at how societal forces related to gender impacts learning, issues regarding at-risk students, and effective ways of providing rehabilitation education.”

Completed in 2011, the Education Building received funding and underwent a total and complete renovation and addition, under the leadership of Rice. He worked closely with the architects, faculty, and university officials to ensure this would be a state-of-the-art learning facility for students. He led a fundraising effort to provide modern and comfortable furnishings and much needed technology, costs not included in the project budget.

“Under Dan Rice’s leadership as dean, the College of Education and Human Development has developed on all fronts: teaching, research/scholarship, and service," said Paul LeBel, provost and vice president for academic affairs. "The realization of his vision for the College is reflected in the wonderful new facility that provides a home for cutting edge instruction and collaborative research. The completion of the building project is an outstanding capstone to an extraordinary period of progress which has been led by Dan.”

“The many students who have been educated through the college and who have gone on to work in the state in education, counseling, social work, and related fields stand as a monument to the success Dan and his colleagues have enjoyed," said Kelley. "I suspect, though, that Dan’s lasting legacy for many will be the championing and managing of the renovation of the Education Building and the construction of the link between Education and Gillette Hall. This is truly a model for the rest of the University to emulate.”

Rice’s vision for the Education Building project was not only to have a first class facility, but to also concentrate on the student experience as a whole. Comfort, technology, faculty support all play an important role in a student’s education.

“There are many elements, such as the interspersing of offices from different disciplines, creating gathering spaces, focusing on the health and wellness of the inhabitants of the building through such areas as natural lighting and healthy foods in the vending machines – that make this facility a model for achieving the Exceptional UND," said Kelley.

Rice holds a bachelor's degree in sociology from Dakota Wesleyan University, a master’s of divinity degree from Yale Divinity School, and a master’s of science and Ph.D. in educational administration from UND. He received a certificate from the Management Development Program at the Harvard Institutes for Higher Education.

Rice has been with the Department of Educational Leadership since 1986, serving as chair and associate professor until being named interim dean. From 1989 until 1998 he was the director of UND’s Office of Instructional Development. Prior to that, Rice served as the director of the UND Graduate Center in Bismarck. He was named dean of the College of Education and Human Development in 2000.

Rice has been active in many campus activities, including University Senate (chair, 1999-2000) and he served as a faculty representative on the previous presidential search committee and is a full member of the graduate faculty.

Beyond UND, he has served as the chair for the South Dakota Committee on the Humanities, affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the chair for the steering committee of the Bush Regional Collaboration in Faculty Development. Rice has also been a member of the American Association for Higher Education, and the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, and recently served a term as Chair of the North Dakota Deans and Directors of Teacher Education.

He received the President’s Advisory Council on Women Award for the Advancement of Women (1996) and the Educational Service Award from the North Dakota Indian Education Association (2005). Rice is the author of several publications, including his book, The Clifford Years: The University of North Dakota 1971-1991.

Dennis Caine, professor and chair of the Department of Physical Education, Exercise Science and Wellness, has been named interim dean.