An experienced administrator and advocate for the arts came on board July 1 to lead Ithaca College’s founding school. Karl Paulnack, who has served since 2002 as director of the music division at the Boston Conservatory, was named dean of the Ithaca College School of Music last February.

The appointment marks a return to Ithaca for Paulnack, who had been on the School of Music faculty from 1986 to 1998 as an associate professor of piano. He created and directed the school’s bachelor of music in performance–collaborative emphasis degree program.

“I believe that, now more than ever, holistic, comprehensive, interdisciplinary education, where diverse individual pieces fit together to form a clearly understood whole, is our best hope for the future, and for the future of music,” Paulnack said.

“And it is my feeling that Ithaca College is uniquely positioned to model that sort of education in a compelling way. I am deeply honored by the call of this faculty to become their dean, and it is a call I accept with a sense of tremendous expectation, excitement, and commitment.”

Paulnack succeeds Greg Woodward, M.M. ’78, who left the college in March to become the president of Carthage College in Kenosha, Wisconsin.