Randall Atkins

randall atkins

What is your current position, and how many years have you been a dean?
Senior Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, University of Nebraska at Omaha, for 10 years.

What advice would you give new deans?
Make connections with deans and associate deans at other schools, regionally and nationally.

What would you say is your most meaningful contribution as dean?
Our ability to respond the pandemic and make sure our school continued on.

When you think about the liberal arts, what gives you a sense of hope, what is a concern?
Hope: The excitement that students bring to the classroom (I still teach). I get to interact with students as they uncover ideas, dig in, explore concepts and theories.
Concern: Those people who sit outside of the liberal arts and don’t understand its value. It’s up to us to explain what students can do with this education, which is anything, and it doesn’t push them in any particular direction.

Why are you a member of CCAS?
The question should be “why do I keep coming back to the annual meetings?”
This is where I can come and find my people. They are in similar situations and it’s a great place to get ideas.

What might someone be surprised to know about you?
I am a first-generation college student. My family worked in the coal mines and related industries. My parents bought a house that was a block away from a public library, that changed everything for me.

What are you currently reading?
The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert A. Caro