John Carson, a multimedia artist and lecturer at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London, has been appointed Regina Gouger Miller Department Head of the School of Art, Carnegie Mellon University. He succeeds Susanne Slavick, who served as department head for six years. Slavick is beginning a year-long sabbatical after which she will return to the school's faculty.

Hilary Robinson, the Stanley and Marcia Gumberg Dean of the College of Fine Arts, describes Carson as a "wonderful communicator about the role of art in broader communities and a believer in artists as agents for change."

Carson is also an arts consultant for organizations as varied as BBC-TV and Hong Kong Baptist University, and writes about multimedia art. He earned his bachelor of fine arts at the University of Ulster at Belfast in 1976 and a master's degree in fine arts from California Institute of the Arts in 1983.

--Mary Thomas, Post-Gazette art critic