Sonya Duhé, director of the School of Communication and Design has been named the new dean of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University.

She will start her new position July 1, according to an Arizona State University press release.

“I truly feel like I am leaving this place in good shape,” Duhé said. “We’ve accomplished so much.

Kern Maass, dean of the College of Music and Media, said in an email to students that the school will appoint an interim director following Duhé’s departure, and will conduct a national search in the fall.

“Whoever ultimately succeeds Sonya will inherit the fruits of her hard work,” Maass said in the email.

Duhé began at Loyola in 2009 and transformed the mass communication program in her decade-long tenure. She oversaw the addition of visual communication, graphic design and digital filmmaking to Loyola’s journalism and strategic communication programs in the School of Communication and Design.

During her time at Loyola she also launched the Loyola News Service, the Gray Incubator Program and several other professional-in-residence programs.

Duhé said New Orleans will always be a home for her. She has two sons who graduated from Loyola — one from the School of Communication and Design — and said she aimed to treat all her students like they were her own children.

“Now sometimes that means tough love,” Duhé said. “But I just don’t know any other way.”

Although she said she would miss the people most of all, she said she is very excited about the opportunity to lead one of the top research schools in the country.

“It is an awesome opportunity, but it comes with an awesome responsibility to uphold its namesake, Walter Cronkite,” she said.

Duhé will replace Christopher Callahan, the founding director of the Cronkite School who helped make the school one of the nation’s top communication programs.

As for her eventual successor, Duhé said she hopes the person chosen will take the School of Communication and Design to the next level.

“That’s just critical,” she said. “We’ve got so much going for us here.”