Special Interest

Ken McAllister named College’s Interim Associate Dean

COH Dean Mary Wildner-Bassett announced the appointment of Dr. Ken S. McAllister to the position of Interim Associate Dean of the College of Humanities, effective July 1, 2009.  Dr. McAllister is serving as Interim Associate Dean for one year while Dr. Kimberly Jones leads a program of study in Japan.

Dr. McAllister is an Associate Professor of Rhetoric, Composition, and the Teaching of English, specializing in new media studies and computer culture. Prior to joining the University of Arizona faculty in 1998, Ken founded his own computer repair and consulting business in Chicago, and also worked as a computer programmer—mainly doing database application development—for the state of Illinois. From 1998-2005, Ken served as the Executive Director of Alternative Educational Environments, a 501c3 that developed relationships among international media companies, independent libraries and archives, small science and technology museums, and educational institutions. In 1999, Ken co-founded and continues to co-direct the Learning Games Initiative, a research collective that studies, teaches with, and builds computer games in educational contexts. In this latter capacity, Ken has worked extensively with scholars, teachers, and professionals from all over the world and in disciplines as varied as media political economy, physics, Cambodian heritage preservation, mortuary archaeology, and child psychology. He has said that he is honored to have the opportunity to serve COH and looks forward to collaborating with his many new colleagues throughout CLAS.