UA President Patrick Gamble appoints two new positions

by Michelle Saport  |   

UA President Patrick Gamble recently appointed two new statewide positions. Donald Smith has been announced as the new chief of the Statewide Office of Human Resources and Dana Thomas as the new vice president of Academic Affairs. Both have served as an interim for their respective positions.

Smith was appointed after a nationwide search, which resulted in his selection by a university search committee. Formerly, he was the system wide executive director of Labor and Employee Relations. He has accumulated more than 30 years of working experience in human resources and employee relations in both government and private business.

Dana Thomas previously served as vice provost and accreditation liaison officer for UAF.

He is an alumnus of the UAF Biology Program and later earned a master's and doctorate in statistics. Born and raised in Fairbanks, he developed UAF's first statistics program in 1981. He has been a faculty member in statistics for 31 years and was chair of the Department of Mathematics and Statistics for six years. In 2005, Thomas received the Emil Usibelli Distinguished Teaching Award.

Thomas is also a member of the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities, a primary accreditation body for higher education in the northwest United States.

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