Academic Affairs Dean Candidates

Rhonda Huisman (she/her), MAE, MLIST, EdD (abd) is an accomplished academic library leader with more than 25 years of experience advancing student success, faculty engagement, and equitable access to information in higher education. She currently serves as the Dean of the University Library at St. Cloud State University (MN) where she has led strategic direction, operations, and organizational transformation since 2017. Her leadership has centered on building collaborative, student‑centered library ecosystems that strengthen learning, research, and community partnerships. Before joining St. Cloud State, Huisman served as Library Director at Marian University (IN) and Associate Dean and Assistant Professor at Wichita State University (KS), and library faculty at Indiana University. Earlier in her career, she held roles in instructional support, curriculum development, and community college and K–12 education, and secured numerous grants and awards supporting research on student diversity, college readiness, curriculum development, course affordability, and faculty‑librarian collaboration. Her scholarly contributions include books, articles, and national presentations on information literacy, high-impact educational practices, equity in higher education, and the evolving role of academic libraries as well as consulting on strategic planning and accreditation.

Campus Presentation
2:15 - 3:15 p.m. · Meriam Library Research Commons
Zoom link

Candidate Materials

• • Rhonda Huisman's Itinerary and CV
  • Survey - now closed

Colleen S. Harris currently serves as Dean of the Sue & Radcliffe Killam Library at Texas A&M International University. Previously, in ten years of service at California State University Channel Islands she held the roles of Head of Instruction, Engagement and Assessment, Digital and Data Services Librarian, and Information Literacy Coordinator, deeply integrating the library into the student research experience and expanding library programming with campus and community partners. Prior to that experience, she served as Head of Access service at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and Associate Head of Access at North Carolina State University. In addition to her MS in Library Science from the University of Kentucky, she holds a NASPAA-accredited Master of Public Administration with a concentration in nonprofit management from CSU San Bernardino, an MFA in Writing (poetry) from Spalding University, an MA and PhD in Mythological Studies from Pacifica Graduate Institute, and an EdD in Learning & Leadership from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Her award-winning library research focuses on academic library director leadership, effective organizational planning and communication between leadership and staff, and information literacy, and appears in Journal of Access Services and Journal of Academic Librarianship, among others. She edited So You Want to Be An Academic Library Director (ALA Editions, 2017), and as an interdisciplinary scholar whose literary research examines myth, embodiment, gender, and literary representation, she also co-edited Women Versed in Myth: Essays on Modern Poets (McFarland 2016) and is working on a monograph on lyric theory.

Campus Presentation
2:15 - 3:15 p.m. · Meriam Library Research Commons
Zoom link

Candidate Materials

• • Colleen Harris's Itinerary and CV
  • Survey - now closed