Christopher “Kit” Spicer has been appointed to serve a one-year term as interim dean of Western Washington University’s College of Fine and Performing Arts starting Aug. 1, according to an announcement from WWU Provost Catherine Riordan.

Spicer will succeed Dan Guyette, who resigned the position to become dean of the College of Fine Arts at Western Michigan University.

Plans are to initiate a national search for the college’s next dean in the upcoming 2013-14 academic year.

“I’m pleased to join the College of Fine and Performing Arts at WWU.  I’ve long admired Western for its unyielding commitment to student-centered education,” Spicer said, in a press release. “I’m especially looking forward to continuing to support and build ongoing collaborations within the college, across the university and with the broader community.”

Spicer has a doctorate in organizational communication from the University of Texas at Austin. From 2003 to 2011, he was dean of the College of Fine Arts & Communications at Towson University, in Towson, Md., a college with 3,300 undergraduate and graduate students in six departments.

He has also held positions at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma.