With the dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences migrating south to Mississippi, questions about his replacement are being raised.

Peter Rabideau, dean of the Liberal Arts and Sciences College since 1999, announced July 17 he accepted the position of provost and vice president for academic affairs at Mississippi State.

An interim dean will be named by the end of August, said Howard Shapiro, vice provost for undergraduate programs.

The interim dean will serve until a new dean is appointed, said Zora Zimmerman, LAS associate dean for academic affairs.

“The next big step is to put together a search for a permanent dean,” Zimmerman said.

A committee will be formed to conduct the search, Zimmerman said, which will include department faculty, at least one department chair and most likely someone from another college within the university.

“Its been a mix of people in the past,” she said.

LAS is the largest college on campus in terms of number of departments and students, Shapiro said.

“It’s a very important deanship,” he said.

Shapiro said Rabideau will be leaving in the next few weeks.

Rabideau is to start at Mississippi State no later than Sept. 1, according to the approved motion by the Mississippi Board of Trustees.

The provost office is in charge of appointing an interim dean, Shapiro said.

Ben Allen, ISU provost and vice president for academic affairs, is currently on vacation and unavailable for comment.

Shapiro said Allen will appoint an interim dean when he returns.

“[Appointing a dean] is his first order of business when he gets back,” Shapiro said.

Michael Whiteford, LAS associate dean for administrative affairs, said Allen asked for suggestions and nominations for an interim director to be sent to him.

“[Allen] said he expected to name somebody by Aug. 31 at the very latest,” Whiteford said.

Zimmerman said the provost promised to start the search for the permanent dean as soon as possible after the semester starts.

“It’s lucky to do a search within a semester,” Zimmerman said. “There have been instances in which we do a search for a couple years.”

The last search for a dean of LAS took two years, she said. John Dobson and Richard Hoffman served as interim deans during the period from 1997 to 1999. Dobson is now the dean of LAS at Oklahoma State and Hoffman holds the same position at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln.

Whiteford said the length of the last dean search made things difficult.

“It was very unsettling. The office of the dean is a very important one,” Whiteford said. “Having two different interims was very unfortunate.”

The dean’s ideas have an impact on everyone, he added.

Zimmerman said associate deans are eligible to be named interim deans.

A farewell reception for Rabideau will be held at 3 p.m. Thursday in 302 Catt Hall.