Alicia Ann Clair, a Kansas University professor of music education and music therapy, has been named interim dean of KU’s new School of Music, effective July 1. Plans call for a national search for a permanent dean to launch in the fall.

“Alicia Clair has the vision and administrative skills to work with all music faculty in forming our new school,” Provost Richard Lariviere said in a news release. “During interviews, we were struck by Alicia’s keen ideas, enthusiasm and strong advocacy for the role of a music school, its faculty and students in a national research and teaching university.”

The School of Music emerged from a reorganization of KU fine arts programs that was approved by the Kansas Board of Regents, effective July 1. The reorganization also forms a School of the Arts within the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences that will include the departments of theater, film, dance and art, and moves the design department to the School of Architecture and Urban Planning.

“I am honored to serve the university and its extraordinary music faculty during our transition as a full-fledged school,” Clair said.

At KU, Clair has held successive administrative posts as interim associate dean of fine arts in 2009, division director of music education and music therapy from 2005 to 2008 and coordinator of graduate studies in music education and music therapy from 2000 to 2005. For two years in the mid-1980s, she was associate dean for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and for the School of Education.