Two of the four candidates to lead Iowa State’s new College of Human Sciences are scheduled for interviews and public forums this week.

Each candidate is slated for an open forum on the first day of his or her interview, with a diversity forum to be held the second day.

Interviews for Pamela White, interim dean of the College of Family and Consumer Sciences and university professor of food science and human nutrition, are scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday. Marlene Strathe, provost and senior vice president of Oklahoma State University at Stillwater, will interview Thursday and Friday.

White is the first of the dean candidates to interview for the job. She said when she first became interim dean of the family and consumer sciences college, she was unsure if she would want to become a full-time dean. The excitement she has experienced in forming the new human sciences college influenced her decision in the other direction, she said.

“You don’t get that opportunity every day, so it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity to be involved with moving the college forward from this point,” she said.

White said she does not know the other candidates for the position. The other two candidates will not be announced until they visit campus next week.

White has been at Iowa State since 1975 and in the last 30 years has moved up through the ranks of the College of Family and Consumer Sciences, becoming interim dean of the college in July 2003.

Strathe has earned three degrees, including her doctorate in education research and evaluation, from Iowa State. She has been in her position at Oklahoma State since 2003.

White will take questions at her open forum at 4 p.m. Tuesday in the Gallery of the Memorial Union. Strathe’s forum is scheduled for 3 p.m. Thursday in the MU Oak Room. Both diversity forums will be held at 10 a.m. in 302 Catt Hall, with White’s on Wednesday and Strathe’s on Friday.

The College of Human Sciences will be founded July 1, combining the programs and departments of the College of Education and the College of Family and Consumer Sciences.

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Dean Michael Whiteford, head of the 15-member search committee for the human sciences dean, said in a previous Daily article that the committee hopes to appoint the new dean by July 1, and at the latest by the beginning of the 2005-06 school year.

— ISU News Service contributed to this article.