April 27, 2006
Provost Wise discusses administrative changes, faculty concerns in town hall meeting, interview
Provost Phyllis Wise tackled a wide range of subjects last week when she held a town hall meeting open to the whole University community. In that meeting, and in a subsequent interview with University Week, Wise discussed what she and other administrators have been doing since her arrival last summer, and the goals she has for the University’s future.
Undergraduate Education
Wise opened her comments at the town meeting by noting some spectacular successes for UW students. Students from the University were chosen for what is considered the trifecta of top awards: Rhodes, Marshall and Gates Cambridge fellowships. Only four other universities — Princeton, Yale, Stanford, and Penn — boasted winners of all these fellowships, Wise said, and all are private schools.
“But,” Wise noted later, “we also have a large body of students whom we really want to touch more intimately to transform their lives. We’re talking about how we can make it easier for them to access everything that’s going on here.”
Part of her answer was to reorganize the structure of the president/provost’s office to better serve students. The vice president of student affairs will move into the provost’s office under the newly created position of vice provost for student life and be charged with working even more closely with the renamed vice provost and dean of undergraduate academic affiars. Both vice provosts will report to Executive Vice Provost Ana Mari Cauce.
“When we looked at the two positions, the vice president for student affairs served more in the President’s Cabinet and the vice provost position served more with me,” Wise said. “The president of the 21st century is so busy with so many things, many of which take him off campus, that we felt the vice president for student affairs might get a more integrated experience if we put them both under the provost. So that’s the first step.”
Both positions are currently held by interim people — Eric Godfrey in student life and Christine Ingebritsen in undergraduate education. Internal searches have been launched for both positions, and Wise said she hopes to have permanent people in place by summer, or fall at the latest.
Because the current units in student affairs also serve graduate students, Wise said that Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School Suzanne Ortega will have a double reporting structure. She’ll report to both Wise and Cauce to cover both the Graduate School’s research activities and educational missions.
Wise said she expects the new vice provosts will be examining all of the responsibilities connected with undergraduate education, to see if the integration of responsibilities is optimal for getting the job done. One thing she wants them to take a close look at is advising, to make sure students “get better guidance from the day they are accepted.”
But she emphasizes that advisers are not the problem. “I’m not at all unhappy with the advisers, but I think we have so many ways of advising that number one we want to make sure we have enough advisers and number two that they receive the best training. And three, we want to be sure that when students move from the pre-major adviser to the departmental adviser that that handoff is effective and efficient.”
Wise also said she thought nontraditional means of advising ought to be explored — such as having advisers in the residence halls and the Greek system, or in venues such as the HUB or other gathering places.
One possibility that is being explored to better integrate undergraduate education is to make Mary Gates Hall a “one-stop shopping” location for student services. Wise said she and a number of other administrators had toured the building and were considering what the space needs of such a plan would be.
Minority Affairs
About 20 minority students staged a polite protest during the town meeting, questioning Wise about the choice of Sheila Edwards Lange as interim vice president for minority affairs and saying that students of color lack a voice on campus.
Wise thanked the students for voicing their concerns, and later said she was “very aware that our students of color have been wanting us to do more in terms of increasing the number of minority students and also making the campus a more welcoming place.”
She said the administration was redoubling its efforts to recruit a diverse student body as well as a diverse faculty, and that the number of minority students applying and admitted to the University was up this year, in some cases by 10 percent.
Regarding Lange’s appointment, Wise said, “We sought input from a large number of people in minority affairs and selected someone we felt would be the best in terms of working with this community for a year while we search for a permanent replacement.”
She noted that Associate Vice President of Minority Affairs Emile Pitre, whom the students had thought should get the job, supported Lange’s appointment.
Wise added that Cauce met with the protesting students privately to make sure all their concerns were heard, and that Lange planned to meet with several other students who had suggested that the administration go beyond ASUW when recruiting students to serve on committees.
Leadership, Community and Values Initiative
Wise noted that the initiative survey results showed that there was “little respect or trust for the upper administration among faculty,” so she and the president have tried to meet with the faculty more frequently and in a variety of venues.
“I have met all the deans, almost all the chairs, and some of the faculty,” she said. “I hope we’ll be able to go to each of the units at least annually, but I’m also trying to figure out other ways to maintain contact.”
Ideas being considered are to have issue-oriented forums on subjects of wide interest and to have a quarterly electronic newsletter from the provost’s office. “Different people like to communicate in different ways, so I’d like to provide a number of different ways of making contact,” Wise said.
Other issues that came out of the initiative survey are leadership training, salaries and interdisciplinary efforts.
“One of the comments that came up frequently from both faculty and staff was that they felt their career was being mentored, but that over the long term they didn’t know whether there would be leadership mentoring and opportunities to be in leadership positions,” Wise said. “So we’re working out whether we can provide workshops for that — to identify the people who have the talent and desire to be leaders.”
Wise said JoAnne Suffis, interim vice president for human resources, was working on this from the staff side. “For faculty, we are taking the ADVANCE model, which is an NSF grant to develop leaders in science and math, and applying it more broadly.”
Regarding salaries, Wise said the the administration was currently working on budget projections to determine how much money could be set aside for meritorious faculty who have fallen behind in salary. Last year the administration allocated $2 million for this purpose.
Wise noted that the Legislature had only allowed for salary increases of 1.6 percent for faculty and staff for the coming academic year. “We know we are behind in salaries compared to our peers, and we will set aside money from other budget categories to increase the amount dedicated to compensation,” she said.
The issue on interdisciplinary efforts, Wise said, lies in “finding ways to be sure that faculty who want to do that are rewarded for the effort it takes.” Support, she said, could come in a number of ways, such as providing pilot money, or a grant writer, or some release time from teaching.
Vision Statement
In recent months the administration has created and disseminated a vision statement for the University, which they posted on the Web and invited faculty, staff and students to react to.
“The response wasn’t huge, but there were some very thoughtful comments,” Wise said. “Right now we’re right in the middle of trying to create objectives and goals that would help to fulfill the vision, and then we’ll have some metrics to tell us whether we’ve been successful.”
Wise said the vision statement would be presented at the May meeting of the Board of Regents, along with approximately 10 statements — called Uniquely Washington — that address the specific things that make the UW different from other universities. If those are approved, the administration will finalize the goals and objectives, which they hope to have ready to go by fall.
Provost’s office organization
Wise noted that she had recently named an executive vice provost and three vice vice provosts, some of whom were taking on different duties than in the past.
“In general I think the organizational structure of the provost’s office hadn’t been looked at for a while,” she said. “So I’ve tried to review who the vice provosts are and what their responsibilities are and to sharpen these.”
The executive vice provost is an entirely new position, and has been filled by Ana Mari Cauce. The vice provost for global affairs is a broadening of what used to be the vice provost for international education. Susan Jeffords has been named to that post. The position will be concerned with developing international relationships not only for teaching but also for research and business partnerships — everything that has to do with the University’s interactions with other governments.
Wise said there may be other changes in the office structure as she continues to evaluate positions.
Town hall meetings
This was Wise’s second town hall meeting, and she said she hopes to continue having them about twice a year.
“I really do need to hear the concerns and successes of faculty, staff and students,” she said. “It’s a good idea for me to listen to them in that kind of a forum, and it’s a good idea for all who attend these things to understand that this is what’s on the minds of others. It was challenging, but I think it makes us all more aware of what’s going on in our midst.”
To view the original town meeting on UWTV video, go to http://www.uwtv.org/programs/displayevent.asp?rid=3494
