Monthly Academic Report (September 2024)
Message from the Provost
Dear Colleagues,
As we begin a new academic year, some information from the 2023 Faculty Data report is encouraging:
- One-year retention for full-time faculty is improving (from 87.9% in 2021 to 91.2% in 2022);
- The overall percentage of URM faculty members is increasing (from 10.0% in 2019 to 12.7% in 2023); and
- VCU employs the highest percentage of Black full-time instructional faculty among Virginia universities with graduate programs, and at 6.7%, VCU’s percentage of Black tenured and tenure-track faculty is the highest among Virginia’s R1 institutions.
A lot of work remains, however, when it comes to attracting and retaining a diverse community of highly-qualified faculty members. For example, we know that we must retain more VCU faculty members between their second and third years. Higher loss numbers there carry significant budget implications and challenges for faculty collaborations and student success.
That’s why I focused on some of our strategies to address this challenge in the message I shared with you at the beginning of the semester.
“Perhaps the biggest of those strategies is the Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education (COACHE) survey process beginning this year. We are assembling a steering committee that will prepare us to launch a Faculty Job Satisfaction Survey in February, followed by a Faculty Retention and Exit Survey during the 2025-2026 academic year. Faculty responses to those surveys will deliver valuable insights on steps we can take to support them now and to attract highly-talented colleagues in the future.”
We’re also working to name later this fall another class of National/International Recognition Award (NIRA) scholars to highlight some of the phenomenal work being done by VCU faculty.
Our university is pursuing exciting and ambitious goals moving forward. We cannot achieve them without our amazing faculty. I appreciate our on-going conversation on how we can best support you in your work.
Best regards,
Fotis
Celebrating VCU Faculty
I was incredibly honored to recognize some of VCU’s outstanding faculty members whose achievements were celebrated at the university’s 42nd annual Faculty Convocation on August 29. This year’s honorees include:
University Award of Excellence
William L. Dewey, Ph.D.
School of Medicine
Distinguished Scholarship Award
Yan Zhang, Ph.D.
School of Pharmacy
Distinguished Teaching Award
Shelli Fowler, Ph.D.
College of Humanities and Sciences
Distinguished Service Award
Charlene D. Crawley, Ph.D.
College of Humanities and Sciences
Outstanding Early Career Faculty Award
Xuewei Wang, Ph.D.
College of Humanities and Sciences
Outstanding Term Faculty Award
Marcie S. Wright, Ph.D.
School of Public Health
As I noted during the convocation, there were no nominations made this year for the adjunct award. We deeply value and honor the work of VCU’s adjunct instructors and look forward to reviewing nominations offered for this award next year.
Initiative Update
- In recognition of the critical role faculty play in leading major university initiatives, the Office of the Provost has made a significant investment in faculty director roles. These individuals work closely with each other, the Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, Andrew Arroyo, Ed.D., and the academic affairs team. Please contact them directly if you are interested in learning more about the initiatives they represent.
SACSCOC Quality Enhancement Plan: Every Ram’s a Researcher
Sarah Golding, Ph.D.
Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Research, Department Biology
Special Assistant to the Dean
College of Humanities and Sciences
Matthew James Vechinski, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Coordinator of Academic Programming
University College
ConnectEd General Education
Carolina Yaber, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Biology
College of Humanities and Sciences
Christy Tyndall, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Student Wellbeing Program Coordinator, Honors College
Vertically Integrated Projects
David Naff, Ph.D.
Director, Metropolitan Educational Research Consortium
Associate Director, Institute for Collaborative Research and Evaluation
Assistant Professor, Department of Foundations of Education
School of Education
Dayanjan (Shanaka) Wijesinghe, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Department of Pharmacotherapy and Outcomes Sciences
Director, Laboratory of Pharmacometabolomics and Companion Diagnostics
School of Pharmacy
The VIP Faculty Directors also work closely with Vennie Filippas, Ph.D., Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Graduate Program Director and VIP Director, College of Engineering.
- Here’s the latest on the implementation of Academic Repositioning recommendations:
- Have you signed up yet for the first Provost Lecture Series event of the year? It’s entitled The Heart of the Matter: Jerusalem and the Struggles of Israel and Palestine, happening September 12, from 12:00pm to 1:30pm. You don’t want to miss it.
- As the fall semester begins, you may receive accommodation letters from students, provided by the Student Accessibility and Educational Opportunity (SAEO) office. When students request their letters, faculty will receive an automatically-generated notification from SAEO, but that is not the official letter. The official letter should come from your student and be on SAEO letterhead. Please remember that accommodations begin the moment students share these letters with you – there is no deadline for doing so, but they do not apply retroactively. If you have any questions about the implementation of your students’ accommodations, please consult the student’s case manager (their name will be included in the accommodation letter), or email SAEO directly at [email protected]. It may be helpful to clarify any questions with the student as well, either by email or in a brief discussion outside of class time to ensure privacy.
- Save The Date! The Mental Health Fair presented by University Counseling Services and RecWell will occur on September 26th from 10am-2pm in the Student Commons Plaza. The theme this year is “No Health without Mental Health” and this is a great opportunity for students to learn about all of the mental health resources available to them.
- In its first year the Office of Student Advocacy (OSA) helped over 2200 individual students through its services, including students who needed emergency support, food from Ram Pantry, help navigating an off-campus issue, and just general questions. When you have students who need support or an answer to an issue they encounter, OSA is there to help.
- The VCU Division of Community Engagement is off to a fast start on a busy year. Learn more about their work to lead the university to reclassification as a Carnegie Community Engaged University – a designation VCU has held since it first began in 2005.
Quest 2028 Data Point
Did you know that the share of Loudon County seniors who applied to VCU in 2023 (23%) was second only to Henrico County (30%)?
IRDS recently developed a dashboard tracking K-12 enrollment, educational quality metrics, and college enrollment data for Virginia’s public schools.
This tool can support decision-making in a myriad of ways. For example, by tracking grade-specific public school enrollment across Virginia, the dashboard can provide early warning of potential disruptions to undergraduate admission pipelines, facilitating the development of proactive enrollment strategies. By overlaying application, admission, and enrollment data, the dashboard can also inform the development of recruitment strategies by highlighting regions where VCU performs strongly or has opportunities for improvement.
The image shows the percentage of public high school seniors who submitted an application to VCU for fall 2023.
To learn more about how this dashboard and other IRDS resources can support your work, email [email protected].
Upcoming Events
To learn more about, and register for, these events, please visit the Faculty Affairs events web page.
Chairs Monthly Forum: The Role of Department Chairs in Creating a Healthy Workplace Culture
Monday, September 9, 2024 – 10:00-11:30 am
Provost Lecture Series: The Heart of the Matter: Jerusalem and the Struggles of Israel and Palestine
Thursday, September 12, 2024 – 12:00-1:30 pm
GEN AI & Teaching & Learning Session: Fair Images: Creating and Recognizing Bias in Gen AI Imagery
Wednesday, September 18, 2024 – 10:00-11:15 am
2024 Orientation for Newly Promoted Associate Professors
Thursday, September 26, 2024 – 9:00-1:00 pm
Monthly Session for Faculty: Job Crafting
Monday, September 30, 2024 – 12:00-1:15 pm
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Categories Academic Affairs, Community Engagement, Faculty Affairs, Monthly Academic Update