Inside the College

Rick Van Kooten

Executive Dean

College of Arts and Sciences

Rick Van Kooten, who first joined IU Bloomington as an assistant professor in 1993, became the executive dean of the IUB College of Arts and Sciences on July 1, 2019. Before this appointment, he served for five years as chair of the Department of Physics and four years as the IU Bloomington vice provost for research, working across the campus as a passionate advocate for scholarly activity. During his tenure, research infrastructure for intelligent systems engineering was established, and funding for humanities research expanded significantly, as the campus secured grants from many sources, including the Luce and Mellon foundations and the National Endowment for the Humanities. He also steered two of IU's major 21st century initiatives, the Emerging Areas of Research and the IUB components of the Grand Challenges initiatives.

Van Kooten earned his undergraduate degree in engineering science from the University of Toronto and a Ph.D. in physics from Stanford University. He was named scientific associate at the European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN) and then research scientist at the University of Hamburg. He has written or co-written more than 750 publications, most in the area of particle physics, and has also chaired the Fermi National Laboratory Physics Advisory Committee.

An award-winning teacher, Van Kooten remains firmly committed to the importance of a liberal arts education and to strengthening both undergraduate and graduate education in the College.

Phil Ponce

Alexandra and John Nichols Contributing Anchor

Chicago Tonight

Phil Ponce (B.A. '71, English) is an American journalist and television producer, having previously served as the longtime host of Chicago Tonight on WTTW11, the most-watched PBS station in the country.

Ponce has conducted nightly interviews with newsmakers of all stripes, authors, and artists, and he’s moderated panels on topics ranging from business and medicine to the arts and education. His interview subjects have ranged from Barack Obama to Sesame Street’s Elmo. He has hosted town hall meetings and has conducted political debates for the presidency, U.S. Senate, Illinois governor, and Chicago mayor.

Nationally, Ponce was an anchor on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer (now the PBS NewsHour), where he conducted nightly interviews with national and international newsmakers. He has also been a columnist for the Chicago Tribune and currently teaches interviewing at Loyola University Chicago.

Ponce has a law degree from the University of Michigan and practiced law for six years before becoming a journalist. He was a Benton Fellow in broadcast journalism at the University of Chicago.

His awards include Illinois Journalist of the Year, the Studs Terkel Award for Journalism, the City Club of Chicago’s Award for Excellence in Journalism, and the Chicago Headline Club Lifetime Achievement Award.

Ponce’s family has many deep connections to Indiana University and the College of Arts and Sciences, with his wife Ann (B.A. ’70, M.A. ’74, Spanish) and their three children—Dan (B.S. ’99), Anthony (B.A. ’00), and Maria (B.A. ’02)—all IU graduates.