Lincoln, Nebr.--Giacomo M. "Jack" Oliva, professor and director of the School of Music at the University of Florida at Gainesville, has been named dean of the Hixson-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Pending approval by the University of Nebraska board of regents, Oliva will become the college's third dean, replacing Richard Durst, who resigned last summer to become dean of the College of Art and Architecture at Pennsylvania State University. Lawrence Mallett, director of the School of Music, will continue to serve as interim dean of fine and performing arts until Oliva's term begins on July 16.

"We are very fortunate to have atttracted Jack Oliva," said Richard Edwards, senior vice chancellor for academic affairs. "He is going to make an excellent dean for the college. With dynamic leadership and the new Hixson-Lied endowment, the future for this college is really exciting to contemplate."

The Hixson-Lied endowment was created by an $18 million gift announced in January 2000 to the University of Nebraska Foundation by Christina M. Hixson, sole trustee of the Lied Foundation Trust. The gift was the culmination of years of support offered to the university by Hixson and the Lied Foundation trust, including $13 million in previous gifts benefiting the Lied Center for Performing Arts at UNL.

Oliva, who has been professor and director of the School of Music at Florida since 1992, said the endowment was one of the factors that drew him to Nebraska.

"One of the many things that reflect the quality of an institution is the way in which those external to the institution support it, and the Hixson-Lied endowment speaks in a major way to the quality of the college's programs and the importance of the college to the university and to the citizens of Nebraska," he said.

"I was very favorably impressed, too, with the level of commitment that the university has extended to help the college grow. It's a young college with strong programs and high-quality faculty and students. The college has great potential for continued growth and I am pleased and honored to have the opportunity to lead the college as it further defines its vision and moves itself forward."

After studying as a scholarship student at the Chatham Square Music School in New York City, Oliva earned his bachelor's degree cum laude (1971) in music education, his master's degree (1975) in applied music (piano) at Montclair (N.J.) State College and his Ed.D. in music education and administration (1980) at New York University. He taught in the New Jersey public schools for 12 years before becoming assistant professor and head of the department of music at Mississippi State University in Starkville. He remained head of the Mississippi State music department while rising to associate professor in 1986 and professor in 1991.

At Florida, he guided the development and implementation of a five-year strategic plan for the improvement of facilities, the revision and expansion of the curricula, the recruitment of new faculty and the overall enhancement of the School of Music's image in Florida and the southeastern United States. He negotiated the establishment of new full-time faculty lines in choral music, music history, strings, opera, low brass, theory and piano; and developed a successful proposal for the implementation last fall of a new doctoral degree in music.

The newest of UNL's 10 colleges, the College of Fine and Performing Arts was created by the board of regents in 1993 to include programs in art, art history, dance, music and theatre arts that had previously been part of the College of Arts and Sciences. On Jan. 15, 2000, the regents voted to rename the college the Hixson-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts.