The Ohio State College of Social Work named Tom Gregoire its new dean this month, ending a nearly 10-month search for the new face of the program.

Gregoire isn’t exactly a new face though. He has been on the OSU faculty since 1996 and stepped in as interim dean when William Meezan resigned amid controversy last summer.

This made the search for a permanent replacement easy on OSU and Gregoire, who did not even interview for the position.

“The process was in some respects a yearlong interview,” Gregoire said. “I did not have a formal interview as often happens, but I was given the opportunity to do the job and allow for the provost, and the other folks who make these decisions, to see if I did it to their satisfaction.”

His tenure as interim dean could not have come at a more challenging time. The program leaders were in the midst of planning how they would adapt to semesters while working to keep the program’s accreditation, which they must apply for once every eight years.

“We were lucky because our accrediting organization changed the standards for everybody nationally, so we’re maybe the only place in the country that gets to start all over with its curriculum while the rest of our peers are trying to adjust to these accreditation standards while they’re still teaching their same old courses,” Gregoire said.

Gregoire said he is excited about changing a program he has been involved with for so long. He received his doctorate from the University of Kansas in 1994 and joined the OSU faculty shortly thereafter. An expert on substance abuse, he was a three-time winner of the program’s award for best graduate instructor.

He moved on to the administration side of things in 2003, when he began serving as an associate dean and the director of the Master’s of Social Work Program. When Meezan resigned, Gregoire was almost immediately appointed as interim dean, and he served in that position for eight months before his official appointment this month.

The position became available after Meezan resigned, citing physical and personal issues as the cause. Meezan had been at the center of two controversies the previous academic year. He was sued by professor of social work Rudolph Alexander for discrimination based on race, and he was later accused of inappropriate behavior by the university when he spoke at a student orientation wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the phrase “rub my nuts.”

Gregoire is not concerned with the program’s recent history.

“I came into this program with a focus on the future,” he said. “What’s happened, has happened.”

And the future includes some lofty goals for the College of Social Work.

“Right now there are about 220 graduate programs in social work, and we rank 19th in the publics and 30th overall,” Gregoire said. “I want to get in the top 20 for all programs and top 10 for the publics.”

Gregoire’s most important responsibility is still overseeing faculty, staff and students. The College has about 70 faculty and staff members and 650 students, 150 of which are in the undergraduate program. He said the most recent class of undergraduates is the program’s most qualified in its history.

He doesn’t anticipate this trend stopping, as he has noticed more young people gravitating toward social work during his time at OSU.

“One (reason) is there’s jobs. But I also think people come here because they want to change something in the world,” he said. “Nobody gets through life without the benefit of a social worker.”