UALR Series: Meet Shearle Furnish
November 3-9, 2014
By Becca Bona
This is the fourth piece in a series of profiles on the deanship positions at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. As the University has recently restructured its colleges, and hired a few new deans to fill the positions, this series will act as an introduction and a glimpse into the future of UALR’s redefined vision. Today’s subject is Dr. Shearle Furnish, dean of the College of Arts, Letters, and Sciences. The following profiles will be presented in alphabetical order, by last name.
Active city, active university, active dean
For a professor who has had his fair share of travel, it’s refreshing to hear Dr. Shearle Furnish speak so highly of Arkansas’ capitol, home to the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
“Little Rock is every bit as cool as the other places I’ve visited,” he said. His path did not necessarily have Little Rock as a destination in his academic career; however, he’s far from disappointed to have landed here.
Furnish traces his roots to Kentucky, a place where his family has lived, “all the way back to the revolution.” Thus, he was destined to travel to Lexington for his studies, focusing on English literature throughout his undergraduate and graduate career. He received a bachelor’s from Transylvania University in Lexington and his master’s and doctorate from Kentucky University in Lexington.
Afterwards Furnish began his traveling adventures. His first stop was in North Carolina at the University of North Carolina at Asheville. He then headed to Texas, staying 18 years at West Texas A&M University.
“That’s where I rose through the ranks and first became an administrator,” he detailed. He took a department head position and learned much before taking a position as founding dean at Youngstown State University for the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences in Ohio.
Furnish brings a variety of leadership experience to the table, and he brings the necessary energy to go with it to see progression. At Youngstown he hit a dead end, and began looking for other positions where he might have more of an impact.
He further explained his need to move, “I had suddenly come to a position where I knew that I could count the years I had left on both hands and I (still) had a strong vision.”
So far, he’s been motivated by the movement at UALR. “There is a great deal of energy and also possibility to build enrollment here. I think the campus recognizes that it can, and should, get outside of what might be a traditional catchment area.”
Even though Furnish has only been in Little Rock for a short time, he senses a positive, growing shift for the city, region and UALR at large.
“I come to work every day on Cantrell. I see energy and I love what’s going on downtown, and I love the River Market. … It’s really wonderful,” he said.
Top goals for the CALS
Previously, Furnish served as a dean for a College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences. His new position, while similar, has its differences. He explained, “Before I had the social sciences, but I did not have the natural sciences. Now it’s a flip. I’ve spent a lot of time learning more about the natural sciences and paying attention to them because in a way they’ve moved. They didn’t move their departments but they’ve moved their college reporting line.”
UALR’s CALS includes Art, Biology, Chemistry, English, History, International Studies and Second Languages, Mathematics and Statistics, Music, Theatre and Dance, Philosophy and Interdisciplinary Studies, and Physics.
Branding and assuming a collective identity is one of the top goals on Furnish’s checklist, as well as forging and revitalizing relationships within the community. For a college harboring the arts, the letters (humanities), and the natural sciences, a communal brand may seem difficult to categorize, but Dr. Furnish knows it can be accomplished.
“We come really close to looking like the ancient Greek academy,” he said. “The disciplines assembled here are among the oldest in the Western tradition and they’re all represented by ancient Greek civilization. Something like a classic brand is possible.”
The return to the classic may seem strange in a world where STEM is trending, however it lends itself to just as many collaborations within the college. One of the many examples Furnish highlighted included the general move in the arts into the technological side of things. “It wouldn’t surprise me to see something like graphic novels emerging out of the curriculum that would probably take a collaborative effort between English and Art,” he said.
Yet another goal Furnish has for the CALS is to become a major player in Central Arkansas. For example, he said, “My aspiration there is that people in the exterior community, when they think of the arts, they will think of UALR almost as quickly as they think of the symphony, ballet or The Rep theatre.”
This aspiration is not reserved specifically for the arts. He continued, “I want these departments which are full of very talented people to be recognized as relevant to the larger community in Central Arkansas.”
Furnish also plans to amp up the development side of things. “All across the college, the second part of my vision is to do more development. To seek philanthropy and to seek grant funding because when enrollment is down and you’re not thriving on tuition you have to use the tools that are at your disposal; relationships among the community are the most important things.”
Toward the future
“There’s a lot of trust-building to do in the beginning,” Furnish explained. His main goal is to keep a very keen ear open as he ensures those in the college that they are where they need to be. “Right now I’ll stay very quiet and listen; and try to learn because … there is a lot to learn.”
Across the nation higher education is in a crisis, trying to compete with a changing field due to online universities and the change in the traditional college student. However, Furnish believes that higher education simply needs to learn to adapt in order to see the light at the end of the tunnel, and he feels that UALR is capable of doing so.
“Institutions will learn how to be smaller and smarter and to specialize, so the search for brand identity will become very critical,” he said. “Here I can be a proud spokesman … there is more that can be achieved in higher education than people necessarily know.”
Through his position as dean of the CALS at UALR, along with the strong university leadership he plans to show people different solutions.
Most importantly when talking about college, Furnish holds true that while it’s about bettering oneself in the long-run, it’s also about finding oneself, no matter what demographic a student falls in. “Going to college is about discovering and following your passions. And that needs to come first,” he said.
For more information on the College of Arts, Letters, and Social Sciences visit: http://ualr.edu/cals/.
