Provost Names New Leaders for Undergraduate Education

The transformation of UW undergraduate education took another step forward June 23 as Provost Phyllis Wise announced two appointments: Eric Godfrey as vice provost for student life and Ed Taylor, '94, as vice provost and dean of undergraduate academic affairs. Both have deep UW connections: Godfrey has spent 25 years in student affairs and development while Taylor is a professor in the College of Education and an alumnus.

Eric Godfrey
Vice Provost for Student Life

From the July 6, 2006 edition of University Week
By Nancy Wick

When Eric Godfrey became the interim vice president for student affairs last fall, he did not intend to pursue the permanent position, which is now called the vice provost for student life. But nine months in the job changed his mind.

"I was reminded about the degree to which someone in this role can have an effect on the quality of the student experience," he said. "It's always gratifying, though sobering."

Godfrey officially assumed the new position this week, after an internal search process.

This isn't his first stint in what was formerly called the Office of Student Affairs and now will be called the Office of Student Life. He came to the University in 1981 as director of financial aid. Two years later he became an assistant vice president in student affairs and remained in that position until five years ago, when he moved over to the Office of Development and Alumni Relations, where he worked to create scholarships for undergraduates.

Godfrey's whole career, in fact, has been about services for students. Born in Seattle but raised in numerous cities around the country, he earned a bachelor's in psychology and a master's in counseling and student life at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma.

Noting that he had mentors in student life who encouraged him to get into the field, Godfrey said, "I decided early on that I wanted to spend my days on a college campus and I was particularly interested in student development, especially issues of equity, access and diversity. So it was altogether intentional that I took this career path."

Prior to the UW, he held student life positions at Penn State University and California State University at Long Beach.

Godfrey sees his unit as being divided into two kinds of services. One group of offices provides support for students as they get into and through the system that is the University: admissions, registration, financial aid, disability services, and so on. "They work to ensure that education is possible and accessible for students," Godfrey said. "Done correctly these services can make all the difference in the world."

The other group of services deals with life beyond the classroom: career exploration, counseling, student government, and so on - services that speak to the need to "educate the whole person," Godfrey said.

Although he believes that the UW has been doing an excellent job in both areas, Godfrey sees this as a transitional time, thanks to the reorganization initiated by Provost Phyllis Wise that moved his unit under her office and changed his position title from vice president to vice provost. He calls the change "absolutely the right move," saying it will bring him closer to other units providing related student services.

"The challenge before us will be to work with our colleagues to reposition student life at the core of the student experience and to build stronger collaborations with other units, such as the Office of Minority Affairs, the Office of Undergraduate Academic Affairs and the Graduate School," Godfrey said. "The more integration we have, the more responsive we can be to students' developmental needs."

In his nine months as interim vice president, Godfrey has already set up several work groups to consider ways to enhance the student experience.

One group is working on a pilot program for residential Freshman Interest Groups. The idea would be to get a group of freshmen with a common interest to live in the same area of a residence hall, so that they could share their interest both in and outside the classroom. The pilot program, if approved would begin with four or five FIGs of 20 to 25 students. If they went well, the program could be expanded.

A second group is looking at the Student Conduct Code from a philosophical standpoint. Up to now, Godfrey said, they've had an enforcement orientation. "We'd like to do more around citizenship education and ethics, and also get more students involved in the judicial process," he said.

A third group is looking at the area of health/wellness. Godfrey says this area has been somewhat fragmented, with many different groups doing programs in many different areas. "We're looking at ways to coordinate our efforts - not just in education but also focusing on environmental and behavioral factors," he said.

Godfrey is looking forward to working closely with his counterpart in undergraduate academic affairs, Ed Taylor, who also assumed his position this week, and to that end would be "very pleased" if some or all of student life offices are moved to Mary Gates Hall - a change that Provost Wise has been interested in making.

And he'll continue working closely with students. "It's very important in this position to be out there with students," he said. "I have standing meetings with ASUW leaders. What's most important is that you don't speak for the students, but you ensure that there's a place for them in the process."

Which is why he got into this line of work in the first place. Said Godfrey, "It's very satisfying because I'm helping to ensure access to higher education, addressing issues of equity and diversity, and I'm surrounded by professional colleagues who are so committed to serving students."

Ed Taylor
Vice Provost and Dean of Undergraduate Academic Affairs

From the July 6, 2006 edition of University Week
By Peter Kelley

Ed Taylor, '94, was a talented high school basketball player with no firm plan for his future when he met the people who would unknowingly steer his life toward teaching. Not surprisingly, they were students.

An associate professor in educational leadership and policy studies, Taylor has been named vice provost and dean for undergraduate academic affairs, a position formerly called the dean for undergraduate education. He recalled a few memories when asked about his life and career as he starts this challenging new job.

Taylor said when he arrived at Lompoc High School in Santa Barbara County, Calif. - a boy from a "very modest" single-parent home - he met two key personalities: the coach who let him straight onto the varsity team, and the school principal, who got him involved in a grant-funded program reading to children in a preschool for low-income families.

The irony was not lost on him, he said, but he enjoyed the work even though the funding disappeared quickly.

"We'd sit together and I'd read, or play or facilitate nap time, pretty much every day," he said. "It was a mile and a half away, and I seldom missed a day, even when the checks stopped coming."

Through this experience, he said, he began to think of pursuing either teaching or child psychology. "And even after I first went to college, I would come back during the summer and visit the kids who were now 9, 10, 11. They still remembered me."

Clearly, the experience stuck with him, too. That's when, he said, "I made a deep commitment to issues of access and poverty."

Taylor subsequently earned his bachelor's degree in sociology and his master's in psychology from Gonzaga University, then came to the UW, where he earned a doctorate in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies in 1994.

"Part of what I had a chance to do, when I started at the UW," he said, "was sit in the back of classrooms of people I'd heard were remarkable. I'd watch good teaching - and in part I was trying to learn to be a good teacher myself."

He did post-doctoral work with Fred Campbell, former sociology professor and dean of undergraduate education, calling it "a really powerful and remarkable experience." He spoke highly, too, of George Bridges, who followed Campbell in the deanship, and of Interim Dean Christine Ingebritsen, who he said has done "fabulous work," including her promotion of a common book for the UW campus.

Taylor's appointment as vice provost and dean of undergraduate academic affairs was announced in June, simultaneously with Eric Godfrey's promotion to vice provost for student life. Both began their new positions on July 1.

"Right now there's a window of opportunity on campus with Eric Godfrey's appointment and mine, and the President still early in his tenure at the University," Taylor said, "to really think and continue in new and innovative ways." He said it would be good to create new opportunities for students to be involved in research, "because that's who we are. The unit should not move far from what which we do best - we are one of the nation's top research universities."

He added, "Which is not to say we don't also expect great teaching along the way." In this way, he said, when students think of the UW, "they'll think of those two things hand in hand."

In recent years, Taylor's name in the College of Education has been synonymous with his work with the evolving school systems in South Africa, where he was first brought by the late Comparative History of Ideas Professor Jim Clowes. "Jim had this way of inviting you and enticing you to places without a real plan laid out. And I had never been out of the country, other than Canada," he said, remembering his colleague fondly.

He said simply that that trip "changed my life."

South Africa at the time was just a few years free of its long, dark era of apartheid. Taylor called the efforts he saw to create a multiracial democracy in South Africa "pure, honest and fragile." In an interview posted on the College of Education Web site, he said of the South African schools, "They're on the precipice of something very important in their communities and their schools, and the schools will be an engine for major societal change." He called the educators there "true freedom fighters, and remarkable people."

Taylor remains involved with South Africa through Molo Care, a nonprofit organization he helped found that he said continues to support a dozen schools in South Africa. Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder, a supporter of the nonprofit, teamed up to make music with the Walmer High School Choir from Port Elizabeth. Molo Care provides needed scholarship money to families and offers professional development for school principals, among many other services. (Learn more at http://www.molocare.org/.)

And though Taylor has had his share of academic mentors and teachers, experiences and journeys, he continues to be thankful for the support of family members such as his mother, Mildred Taylor, his sisters Linda Price and Edna Prince and brother Glenn Taylor.

"They have all been inspiring in their respective ways, and my mother in particular," Taylor said. "Her strength and wisdom have guided me to this point, and still do."