Big Sky Times

Montana State University announced this week that Royce Smith will step down as dean of the College of Arts and Architecture at the end of the semester.

Smith, who joined MSU as dean in 2016, plans to return to teaching within the college’s School of Art. He holds a doctorate in art history from the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, a master’s degree in English from Purdue University and a bachelor’s in English from Wabash College. Prior to joining MSU, Smith was director of art history at Wichita State University.

In addition to serving as an associate professor at Wichita State, he has had teaching appointments at the University of South Wales-Sydney and the University of Auckland in New Zealand. He also served as one of the first U.S. professors to teach at the Instituto Superior de Artes national arts school in Havana, Cuba. His scholarly interests focus on modern and contemporary art history with an emphasis on South America.

At MSU, Smith has strongly advocated for the role of arts and creativity in land-grant universities and making the arts a part of everyday culture at the university. That included shepherding a creative project to incorporate pieces of art into MSU’s parking garage.

As dean, Smith developed international partnerships between MSU and the city of Curitiba, Brazil, including student and faculty participation and curricular activities in the Curitiba Biennial of International Art and the Instituto de Pesquisa e Planejamento Urbano de Curitiba.

Smith supported efforts to enhance Montana K-12 school partnerships with Montana Shakespeare in the Parks, reaching the greatest number of outreach performances in the theater troupe’s history, with a presence in 52 regional schools and 61 communities in the intermountain West. He encouraged growth in the Spirit of the West Marching Band as well as increasing opportunities for the band to engage with people across the state. In a national service role, Smith is an active member, mentor and presenter in the International Council of Fine Arts Deans.

“It has been my pleasure to work with Dean Smith and I am encouraged that he will be staying with MSU as a faculty member in the College of Arts and Architecture, where he will continue to help our students succeed in their academic pursuits.” said Robert Mokwa, MSU provost and executive vice president of Academic Affairs.

The university will begin a national search for a new dean for the College of Arts and Architecture this month with the goal of hiring a new dean to lead the college by the start of the fall 2023 semester.

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