Jared Anderson has accepted the position of chair of the Department of Visual and Performing Arts for the period July 2016 to June 2019. He came to Michigan Tech in 2010, after teaching at Northland College in Ashland, Wisconsin. His expertise is music, specifically choral conducting, as well as piano and music theory. Anderson’s resume shows significant experience as a conductor and as a performer with, among other groups, the Dale Warland Singers in St. Paul, Minnesota. This range of experience has served Anderson well in strengthening and developing the various vocal ensembles at Michigan Tech since 2010.
Anderson has served as interim department chair since December 2013, and was recommended for the chair after a departmental search was conducted last spring. Dean of the College of Sciences and Arts Bruce Seely expressed his pleasure at the recommendation of the search committee. “Jared is the type of person who struck me—and others—as a possible future department chair almost from the time he arrived on campus.”
Seely added that Anderson brought not only a strong interest in music, but an equally strong desire to connect music with the other areas of emphasis within the department—art, theatre and sound. At other universities, such a collection of artistic interests are not often located in such close proximity, but Michigan Tech seeks to take advantage of this unique opportunity for co-existence.