Wayne State University Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs Ronald Brown announced the appointment of Matthew W. Seeger as dean of the College of Fine, Performing and Communication Arts, effective August 1, 2011.

Seeger was appointed interim dean of the college in August 2010. "It's an honor to lead such a distinguished group of artists, scholars and critics," said Seeger. "The college is one of the most successful in the university with a well deserved national reputation. I hope to work with the faculty and staff to focus our mission so that we might serve out students even more effectively."

Seeger has been a faculty member and administrator at Wayne State for 26 years. He has been chair of the Department of Communication, graduate officer and associate dean of the Graduate School. He also has advised more than 150 master's students and more than 30 doctoral dissertations.

"Matt has been a tremendous asset to this university for more than two decades," said Brown. "We are thrilled that he will continue to lead the College of Fine, Performing and Communication Arts."

Seeger's teaching and research interests are in the areas of crisis and emergency risk communication. He has conducted extensive work in crisis communication in public health settings; the role of mass media in crisis, including outreach to minority and special needs populations; development of models of risk and crisis communication; and the role of public health in the first-responder community. He is the author or co-author of seven books including Communication and Organizational Crisis and Crisis Communication and the Public Health as well as over 100 peer-reviewed papers.

He has worked with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on pandemic influenza preparedness, including the development and refinement of the CDC's Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication model that is now used to guide all federal public health responses to emergencies. Seeger's work has been supported by the CDC, the National Science Foundation and the State of Michigan. He also has worked with the National Center for Food Protection and Defense, a Homeland Security Center for Excellence on issues of food safety and models of food recalls.

Established in 1986, the College of Fine, Performing and Communication Arts now serves more than 2,800 students majoring in 16 undergraduate and 13 graduate programs through the James Pearson Duffy Department of Art and Art History, the Department of Communication, the Maggie Allesee Department of Dance, and the Departments of Music and Theatre. The college's size, diversity and creative energy make it a major force in the life of Wayne State University and metropolitan Detroit.

Wayne State University is a premier urban research institution of higher education offering more than 400 academic programs through 13 schools and colleges to nearly 32,000 students.