ECU names dean for Human Environmental Sciences

Dr. Karla Hughes, chair of the Department of Human Sciences at Middle Tennessee State University, has been named dean of the School of Human Environmental Sciences at East Carolina University.

Her appointment, which was approved today (April 14) by the University of North Carolina Board of Governors, is effective July 15. Hughes has been at Middle Tennessee since 1994 and previously was a faculty member at the University of Missouri in Columbia and Kansas State University.

She holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Kansas State and a doctorate from the University of Tennessee, and she is the author of numerous publications including 12 in refereed scholarly journals. At ECU Hughes will succeed Dr. Helen Grove, who left the university last year to accept a position in Ohio. Mike Dorsey, dean of the School of Art, has been serving as interim dean.

The School of Human Environmental Sciences, which includes the Departments of Apparel, Merchandising and Interior Design; Child Development and Family Relations, and Nutrition and Hospitality Management, has more than 700 undergraduate and graduate majors.