12/03/2012 Wittmayer to retire at DSU, Forbes-Boyte stepping down By ELISA SAND, Staff Reporter Cecelia Wittmayer and Kari Forbes-Boyte Dakota State University will begin a national search to replace two key positions. Vice President for Academic Affairs Cecelia Wittmayer and Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Kari Forbes-Boyte announced they would be vacating their positions. Wittmayer is retiring next June, and Forbes-Boyte is stepping down to pursue full-time teaching in geography and cultural anthropology at DSU beginning next fall. Wittmayer has been at DSU since 1986, when she was hired as an assistant professor in marketing. After a marketing career in the direct-mail catalog industry, she taught marketing/advertising at DSU from 1986-90. In 1990, she took a three-year leave to earn a Ph.D. in business administration/marketing from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She returned to her faculty appointment at DSU in 1993 and received promotions to associate professor in 1995 and to full professor in 2001. Wittmayer was named interim vice president for academic affairs in October 1998 and given the permanent position in June 1999 following a national search. In that position, Wittmayer is responsible for the academic integrity of the institution and for the resolution of conflicts involving academic areas. She supervised the deans and directors of the academic support areas; she also represented DSU on the system-wide Academic Affairs Council. Most importantly, she has shaped DSU's academic programs and was instrumental in getting approval from the S.D. Board of Regents for several master's degree programs and the addition of DSU's doctoral program. Wittmayer was responsible for moving DSU to the AQIP accreditation process, the adoption of the CQI perspective, and she wrote the university's 2012 system portfolio for the Higher Learning Commission. Wittmayer has been a member of Delta Kappa Gamma, Delta Mu Delta and the American Association of University Women. In addition to being an AQIP Strategy Forum Facilitator and Peer Reviewer, she has published a number of articles spanning a 20-year period. Forbes-Boyte has been at DSU since 2005, when she was hired as dean for the College of Arts and Sciences. Since then, she has overseen the development of new programs and research activities for faculty and students. The programs in Digital Arts and Design and Computer Game Design, both developed in recent years, have quickly become some of the largest programs at DSU. The cross-college approach to the Computer Game Design degree has built a challenging program that brings the art and technology of gaming together. Under the leadership of Forbes-Boyte, the College of Arts and Sciences has fully implemented the Math Emporium for pre-general education math courses. The research culture within the college has also flourished under her leadership, with faculty awarded almost $300,000 in grant funds last year. These grants and the active publishing agendas of faculty have helped build a college where research in both liberal arts and natural sciences is greatly valued. During her tenure, the Science Center underwent a massive renovation and reopened for classes in 2010. The college has developed a culturally rich program of speakers and has sponsored a wide variety of learning activities for students outside the classroom, including student participation in regional and national competitions and conferences. Forbes-Boyte has also been key in developing a multi-cultural campus through her work with the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. She is a tenured full professor at DSU. She has served on the faculty at Chadron State College in Chadron, Neb., where she taught American Indian studies, geography and anthropology, and at Emporia State University in Emporia, Kan. Before coming to DSU, she served as the dean of the Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences at Sacramento City College in Sacramento, Calif.

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