O'Connell appointed interim dean
John O'Connell has been appointed the interim dean of the College of Visual and Performing Arts (VPA).
O'Connell is currently professor and chair of the Department of Theatre at IPFW, a position he has held since coming to the university in 2007. From 1998-2007, O'Connell was at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro, Ark., as an assistant and then associate professor of theatre. From 1995-1998 he was a graduate teaching assistant at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Ala. Prior to that, O'Connell worked in various off and off-off Broadway theatres as a producer, director, and stage manager.
O'Connell has dozens of professional and academic directing credits, including Barefoot in the Park at the American Stage Theatre Company in St. Petersburg, Fla., in June 2011, for which he received the Jeff Norton Theatre Nomination for Best Direction. He received a Bachelor of Arts cum laude from Moorhead State University in Moorhead, Minn., and a Master of Fine Arts in directing from the University of Alabama.
Goodman Promoted to Professor
Dana Goodman was promoted to the rank of professor in May 2012 by the Indiana University Board of Trustees.
Goodman has served as chair of the Department of Fine Arts for the last seven years and has made a significant impact on the department by supervising its study abroad program. In the fall of 2012 he will be on sabbatical producing a new body of sculptural work that will investigate the politics of food. His themes will address subjects such as crop failure, the identity of food vs. food-like products and sustainability.
Goodman received his B.F.A. from the University of Iowa in 1988 and M.F.A and M.A. from Ohio University in 1991. He has been in numerous national and regional exhibitions. In 2005, he was part of Mish-Mash, a national exhibition at the Chesapeake Art Center in Baltimore, Maryland. He attended an artists' workshop in Balatonfured, Hungary in the summer of 2005 followed by an exhibition at the Red Salon Gallery in Balatonfured.
Goodman has had solo exhibitions at the Urban Institute of Contemporary Art in Grand Rapids, Mich., the Jasper Art Center in Jasper, Ind., and the Fugitive Art Gallery in Nashville, Tenn. His work has also been featured in exhibitions at the Hunter Museum of Art in Chattanooga, Tenn., the McDonough Museum of Art in Youngstown, Ohio, and the San Angelo Museum of Art in San Angelo, Texas, as well as in two of Penn State University's Crafts National competitions. Dana Goodman's work is represented by Oxford Gallery of Rochester, New York.
