Tag: Provost

Kimberley Buster-Williams has been named to the position of associate provost for enrollment management at the University of Mary Washington. Buster-Williams has spent nearly 20 years in higher education admissions, most recently as acting associate vice president for enrollment management at Northern Illinois University. Buster-Williams, who will begin work at UMW on May 25, will […]

Dear colleagues,As the two committees near completion of their work on the Strategic Resource Allocation project, I write to address the process going forward.  I am anticipating submission of reports from the committees some time around May 1, but in any event before the end of this academic year.Soon after these reports are submitted, they […]

In order to continue to focus on President Hurley’s goal of aspiring to be the best liberal arts and sciences university in the nation, UMW is embarking on an examination of its programs and current expenditures. This will help establish a roadmap for the future. We will be asking such questions as:

• Are we allocating our resources in the best possible manner?
• How might we do things better?
• In what areas can Mary Washington be recognized as truly distinctive?
• How might we further enhance our strengths?
• In an increasingly competitive environment, which new program proposals coming from our faculty might we support?
• Which of our existing programs might we want to expand?

The reality for state-supported institutions like Mary Washington is that state dollars are severely limited and no longer provide funds for meaningful growth in either size or programs. Currently, state appropriations constitute only 20 percent of our operating budget. In addition, all colleges and universities face increasing pressures to keep tuition costs to students and families as low as possible.

It is for this reason that such examinations are becoming commonplace in universities. At Mary Washington, we plan to conduct a broad-based consultative process involving many faculty members. It is imperative that decisions about our future are made with significant faculty involvement, and not imposed from the top down. Again, through this process, we will not only identify future priorities, but also strengthen our unique niche among Virginia’s public universities.

We will be assisted in this endeavor by an external consulting firm that has expertise in developing consultative faculty decision-making processes.  The goal of the exercise is to study all academic and non-academic activities, and to conclude where we might want to invest or reallocate resources. With such a blueprint, making those decisions as we progress forward will be buttressed by widespread input from all constituencies.

The process, which will take several months, is funded by President Hurley’s Fund For the Future, which is supported by the UMW Foundation.  As the study progresses, you will be hearing more about it.

–Ian Newbould
Interim Provost

Eight faculty members were awarded sabbatical leaves for all or part of the 2012-13 academic year to pursue a research or other professional development project, according to the December 2011 newsletter from the Provost’s Office.  Another six faculty members will spend the next academic year as Jepson Fellows with a half-time teaching load while they pursue a research project that has particular and direct application to their teaching.

The 2012-13 sabbatical awardees and their project statements are listed below:

• Nabil Al-Tikriti, Department of History and American Studies.  Project for spring 2013: complete final chapters of monograph on the Ottoman empire and submit final draft for publication.

• David Cain, Department of Classics, Philosophy, and Religion.  Project for fall 2012: complete a collection of essays on Kierkegaard.

• Mindy Erchull, Department of Psychology.  Project for fall 2012: analyze collected data, prepare to present project and results for publication on objectification among young women.

• Eric Gable, Department of Sociology and Anthropology. Project for spring 2013: complete book on the archeology of art.

• James Gaines, Department of Modern Foreign Languages.  Project for spring 2013: complete series of articles on 18^th century literature.

• Stephen Hanna, Department of Geography.  Project for 2012-13 academic year: consolidate research and submit book for publication on heritage tourism in Fredericksburg.

• Bruce O’Brien, Department of History and American Studies.  Project for 2012-13 academic year: complete book draft for a series on modern England (Academic year 2012-2013).

• Jennifer Polack-Wahl, Department of Computer Science.  Project for spring 2013: complete final testing of iTouch to be used in elementary education.

Jepson Fellows and titles of their projects for 2012-13 are:

• Janet Asper, Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry, “Development of Super-absorbing Organic Gellants for Crude Oil, and a Polymer Themed Organic Chemistry Laboratory Curriculum”

• Julius N. Esunge, Assistant Professor, Department of Mathematics, “Minimizing Insurance Company Risk in a Random Framework”

• Ben LaBreche, Assistant Professor, Department of English, Linguistics, and Communication (English), “Liberty Agonistes: The Problem of Freedom in the Age of Milton”

• Jangwoon (Leo) Lee, Assistant Professor, Department of Mathematics, “A Domain Decomposition Method for Mathematical Models with Random Input Data”

• Jason Matzke, Associate Professor, Department of Classics, Philosophy, and Religion (Philosophy), “Between Civil Disobedience and Burning Rage: Reframing Radical Environmental Activism within Deliberative Democracy”

• Colin Rafferty, Assistant Professor, Department of English, Linguistics, and Communication (English), “Beyond Truth: A False Memoir in Literature and Culture”