University of Dallas President Thomas S. Hibbs, Ph.D., BA '82 MA '83, announced the appointment of David Andrews, Ph.D., BS ’90, former associate dean, longtime assistant professor of mathematics and department chairman, as interim dean of the university’s Constantin College of Liberal Arts. Daniel Burns, Ph.D., associate professor of politics, was appointed as interim associate dean. Both Andrews and Burns will begin their new roles on Wednesday, July 1. 

“Though the next year promises to offer many challenges, when I consider the outstanding faculty, staff and students of the University of Dallas, I have great confidence that, working together, we will overcome those challenges, and indeed, grow and thrive,” said Andrews. “Thinking of the men and women who have preceded me as Constantin dean, I'm humbled to continue their great work. I'm particularly grateful for the example and service of outgoing Dean Sally Hicks, with whom I've worked most closely these past two and a half years.” 

After completing a Bachelor of Science in mathematics at the University of Dallas, Andrews earned a Master of Science in industrial engineering from Purdue University in 1993. He continued his graduate studies at Rice University, earning both a Master of Science and a doctorate in statistics. Andrews returned to UD as an assistant professor in 1998.

Largely due to his successes in the classroom and forward-thinking teaching on high-performance computing, Andrews was awarded the SC12 HPC Educator Award, which provided him with a competitive grant to attend the International Conference for High-Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis.

Apart from his teaching experience, Andrews has consulted and worked with a number of businesses, companies and nonprofits, including Texas Instruments, the award-winning political consulting firm Nasica, and the global nonprofit CARE. Andrews has served on and helped advise more than a dozen university committees including the Faculty Senate (2007-present), the Joint Committee on Business Education (2008-present) and the 403b Review Committee (2013-present), which oversees the university’s employee retirement benefits.

The new interim associate dean, Burns, served as a congressional staffer for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, D.C., as a senior policy adviser while on leave for the 2019-20 academic year. Burns received his Doctor of Philosophy in political science at Boston College, where he also held a two-year teaching fellowship. His research in political philosophy focuses on the relationship between religion and citizenship, inquiring into the meaning and limits of religious freedom. He joined the UD Politics Department in fall 2012 as an assistant professor, and later completed a postdoctoral research fellowship at the University of Texas at Austin. 

At the end of June, Sally Hicks, Ph.D., former interim dean of Constantin College, will take “a well-deserved sabbatical over the next academic year,” said Provost Jonathan J. Sanford.