Monthly Academic Report (Dec. 2024)
Message from the Provost
Dear Colleagues,
I wanted to update you on an ongoing process that touches every school and college across VCU: our review of academic program productivity.
Program productivity involves regular annual assessments of all programs to evaluate their health based on a set of common metrics. The components of productivity include defining goals and objectives, and taking actions such as maintaining, investing, modifying, or sunsetting programs. The analysis is complex and nuanced, involving quantitative and qualitative criteria including enrollments, graduates, capacity and labor market demand, as well as centrality to VCU’s mission. This graphic provides a reminder of where we have been and an update on next steps:
I will be discussing this work later this month with the university’s Board of Visitors. At the end of the academic year, the Board will be considering recommendations that will come from school/college- and department-level conversations that started in January of this year and will continue throughout the spring semester. I would encourage you to engage your chair and dean to share your perspective on the data that are informing this process.
This review is an important step in ensuring that VCU is offering the right mix of degrees and certificates needed to prepare our current and future students for the future. As always, thank you for all of that you do on behalf of the students that we serve together.
Best regards,
Fotis
Fotis Sotiropoulos, Ph.D.
Provost and senior vice president for academic affairs
Celebrating VCU Faculty
- Congratulations to the 40 VCU professors who were named to the 2024 class of NIRA scholars! This annual National/International Recognition Award was created to honor VCU faculty members who were nationally or internationally recognized for exceptional accomplishments during the course of the last year. Winners performed at the top of their academic unit and were recommended for the award by their dean. The NIRA includes a financial incentive.
- VCU Scholarly Communications Librarian Katharine Miller has received a fellowship through the Library Copyright Institute, funded by grants from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. The fellowship contributes to the work of The Library Copyright Institute in providing copyright education for library and archive professionals. The fellowship offers a stipend of $5,000 to research and develop new ideas and perspectives for the future of copyright education and training.
- The VCU Institute for Women’s Health has been awarded $3.8 million as part of a five-year grant called the VCU National Coordinating Center for Advancing Gender Inclusive Excellence. This grant aims to enhance gender equity initiatives in the science, technology, engineering, math and medicine workforce. The co-principal investigators who will lead this initiative are Susan Kornstein, M.D., executive director of the IWH; Barbara Boyan, Ph.D., director of the VCU Institute for Engineering and Medicine; and Mangala Subramaniam, Ph.D., senior vice provost for faculty affairs.
- The American Marketing Association has named Grant Heston, vice president for Enterprise Marketing and Communications for Virginia Commonwealth University and VCU Health, as the 2024 recipient of the AMA Foundation Higher Education Marketer of the Year Award as part of the annual Higher Education Marketing Awards.
Initiative Updates
- You will soon be hearing and seeing more information about the VCU Faculty Job Satisfaction Survey coming in February that VCU is conducting in partnership with Harvard University’s Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education (COACHE). The steering committee charged with preparing the university to launch that survey has been working for several weeks now, presenting more information about the process at the school/college level. The spring semester COACHE survey is among the strategies that we are pursuing to meet the Quest 2028 mandate to attract and retain a diverse community of highly-qualified faculty members. As Provost, I am committed to learning from our faculty, and what you share in this COACHE survey, in our work to ensure that working at VCU is a great experience for our faculty members.
- Academic Affairs and ConnectED (general education) are pleased to announce the inaugural ConnectED Teaching Awards. The ConnectED Teaching Awards recognize faculty in the ConnectED program who demonstrate outstanding commitment and effectiveness in teaching ConnectED courses. Two faculty will be recognized and each will receive a stipend of $1,000. Applications are due by January 24, 2025. Learn more here.
- Academic Affairs seeks applications for the QEP Faculty Fellows for the next academic year. Faculty must have plans to teach a section of an existing ConnectED course in academic year 2025–2026 and have ideas for incorporating real-world problems that could be applied to a project-based teaching model. Faculty do not need previous experience with project-based learning as they will be provided with training and ongoing mentoring. Visit this link to learn more about the stipend and how to apply.
- The VCU Learning Experience Design Studio (LEDstudio for short) is open and available to serve all VCU faculty. The studio empowers educators and learners by designing and implementing innovative, student-centered learning experiences across all modalities. Learn more at their website.
- Legacy and impact of the Obama presidency focus of 2025 Black History Month Lecture: “Building a Home for Change: The Obama Presidential Center” will be the topic February 4, 2025 for VCU Libraries’ annual Black History Month Lecture. The Center’s Curator of Collections and Exhibitions, Dr. Crystal M. Moten, will provide an overview of the Obama Presidential Center focusing on the center’s museum exhibits. She will: explore the ways the exhibits are rooted in a larger, complex discussion about democracy; highlight the historical predecessors who made President and Mrs. Obama’s stories possible; and share the museum’s storytelling goals as they relate to the events, policies, challenges and accomplishments of the Obama Presidency.
- The VCU School of Education has earned $1.7 Million to support STEM learning for middle school students. The central learning program, Hybrid2: Creating Equitable Spaces for Science Discourse in Blended Learning Environments, is focused on creating a more inclusive approach to integrating scientific discourse with students’ daily lives, and is funded by the National Center for Educational Research – a part of the Institute of Education Sciences, which is the statistics, research and evaluation arm of the U.S. Department of Education.
- Fall and Winter Break periods can be exciting for some students and stressful for others. The Division of Student Affairs offers resources to students who may need a little extra support this time of year. The Office of Student Advocacy is the place to connect students who are experiencing food insecurity during this time and/or need access to emergency funds. You can connect students to the OSA team at [email protected].
- Additionally, students in need of mental health support during this time of year when VCU is closed have 24/7 access to Timely Care, which is a virtual health and well-being platform from TimelyMD, designed for college students. VCU Counseling Services has developed a relationship with the TimelyCare team and several thousand students utilize TimelyCare on an annual basis. This service is also available to VCU faculty and staff.
Quest 2028 Data Point
Did you know…with Census 2 complete, now is a great time to check in on VCU’s Quest 2028 goals. The Data Digest, where you can experiment with different filter options, can be a good place to start. For example, if you dig into one-year retention, you’ll see that aggregated rates for male students from minoritized backgrounds have experienced notable increases over the last three years and now surpass VCU’s overall rate and that of all male students.
What can we learn from these trends? How do they compare to our state and national peers? How are other student subpopulations doing? Explore the dashboard and email [email protected] if you are interested in learning more about how IRDS can help answer your research questions.
Upcoming Events
2024 FALL GLOBAL INITIATIVES MASTER CLASS SERIES: Global Engagement Strategies
Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) is one type of virtual exchange where students from two partner institutions engage in purposeful interaction in a joint course which has the potential to contribute to intercultural and global learning. COIL can work with a course that faculty currently teach, or a completely new course can be developed. Class students may interact synchronously or asynchronously for a few weeks or an entire term through whichever technologies are most relevant and useful.
- Culturally diverse students work together on a project, class discussions, or similar group work with discipline-based and intercultural learning outcomes. Casey will introduce participants to some evidence-informed principles of COIL including constructing global or intercultural learning outcomes, discuss the benefits, finding partners, and consider technologies for constructing a COIL experience.
Title: Fundamentals of Designing a COIL or Global Learning Doesn’t Just Happen
Date: December 10, 2024
Time: 11:00 am – 1:00 pm
Location: Student Commons, Richmond Salons III-IV
Registration Link
Title: Spring 2025 New Faculty Orientation
Date: January 9, 2025
Time: 8:30 am – 12:30 pm
Location: Room 110, STEM Building
*This orientation session is being repeated at the request of several colleges and schools
Title: Faculty Club – About COACHE
Date: January 22, 2025
Time: 3:00 pm – 4:30 pm
Location: TBD
Previous VCU Monthly Academic Reports
Categories Academic Affairs, Faculty Affairs, Monthly Academic Update