Daniel Pullin and Kelly Damphousse, who have been serving as interim deans for two of the University of Oklahoma’s largest colleges – the Price College of Business and the College of Arts and Sciences – have been appointed to the positions permanently upon recommendation of OU Search Committees. The appointments, which followed the completion of nationwide searches, were announced by OU President David L. Boren at the March meeting of the OU Board of Regents. Both appointments are effective April 1.
“OU is indeed fortunate to have these two outstanding educators serve their respective colleges as deans,” Boren said. “They received exceedingly positive reports from the search committee which conducted a nationwide search for the best possible candidate.”
Pullin, who will hold the Fred E. Brown Chair in Business, will also continue to serve as an Executive Officer of the University in the role of Vice President. Damphousse will continue to serve as a President’s Associates Presidential Professor of sociology and as NCAA Faculty Athletics Representative.
Pullin joined OU in 2006 as Executive Director of OU’s Center for the Creation of Economic Wealth after serving with McKinsey & Co., a global consulting firm, and Hicks Muse Tate & Furst, a private equity fund. As leader of OU's economic development efforts, he worked to promote university/private-sector activities, coordinate relationships with local, state and national economic/commerce development organizations, commercialize university-generated intellectual property, and create new companies via collaborations between faculty, students and alumni.
Pullin, who earned undergraduate degrees in accounting and finance from OU, an MBA from Harvard Business School, and a Juris Doctorate from OU, currently teaches in the Price College of Business, where he received the OU Foundation Alumni Teaching Award in 2007, 2008 and 2009.
Pullin serves on the Board of Directors for the Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science and Technology, Southwest Nanotechnologies, the Norman Economic Development Coalition, and is also on the Board of Advocates for OU’s K20 Center.
Damphousse joined the OU faculty in 1997, serving on the sociology faculty in addition to a two-year stint as a Faculty Fellow in the College of Liberal Studies, where he earned the Kenneth E. Crook Faculty Award for his work. A President’s Associates Presidential Professor of sociology, he has served as associate dean for the College of Arts and Sciences since 2005, and in 2007, he was named Outstanding Mentor in the President’s Distinguished Faculty Mentoring Program. He has directed several research projects, most notably the American Terrorism Study, the Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring project in Oklahoma City and Tulsa, and the first ever field test of voice stress analysis deception detection software. He also serves as Big12/NCAA Faculty Athletic Representative.
A native of Canada, Damphousse earned his associates degree in law enforcement from Lethbridge Community College. After working in corrections for three years, he moved to America to complete his bachelor’s degree in criminal justice with a specialization in law enforcement and police science. He later went on to graduate school earning a master’s and Ph.D. in sociology from Texas A&M.
He teaches "Introduction to Sociology" to 750 freshmen per year and serves as the co-editor of Social Science Quarterly. He is known for his wide variety of teaching methods; traditional, blended, online and compressed. He currently is OU’s Faculty Athletics Representative, and he and his wife, Beth, serve as OU Faculty-in-Residence in Headington Hall.
