The University of Arkansas at Little Rock has hired a new dean for the Donaghey College of Engineering and Information Technology, the university announced Monday.
Lawrence E. Whitman, former associate dean of the Wichita State University College of Engineering, will join the university in his new role on July 1, University of Arkansas at Little Rock spokesman Keli Jacobi said in a statement. He will make a salary of $214,000 a year serve as the third dean of the college since it was founded in 1999, Jacobi said.
Whitman replaces Eric Sandgren, who stepped down from the position in December to teach, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette previously reported. Abhijit Bhattacharyya, the associate dean, has been serving as the interim dean since January.
Whitman helped increase undergraduate enrollment by 36 percent and undergraduate graduation rates by 20 percent in his previous roles at Wichita State University in Wichita, Kan., according to the statement.
The new dean received a doctorate in industrial engineering from the University of Texas at Arlington and received his master's and bachelor's degrees from Oklahoma State University.
Before working at Wichita State University, he was a researcher at the Automation and Robotics Research Institute and was an engineer at Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics, the university said.
Whitman has published 13 articles and almost 100 conference publications in engineering research topics, received a $2 million grant in research funding and is currently serving a three-year term as the chair of an International Federation of Automatic Control committee, Jacobi said.
