Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs & Provost
Provost’s Academic Update
May 10 , 2006E. Thomas Sullivan
Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost
Julius E. Davis Chair in Law
Dear Faculty, Staff and Students,
The spring semester is drawing to a close as I deliver this final academic update of the year. It has been an extremely productive year on the Twin Cities campus. Members of the University community have worked together to significantly advance several key agendas related to strengthening the academic core of the University, including undergraduate student support, graduate education, interdisciplinary research, and collegiate redesigns. Our success in each area will advance our quest for excellence, to become one of the top three public research universities in the next decade.
As Provost, I am delighted to highlight the recent achievements of a few of your colleagues as exemplars of academic excellence on the Twin Cities campus.
CONGRATULATIONS TO AWARD-WINNING UNIVERSITY FACULTY AND STUDENTS:
* Professor Subir Kumar Banerjee (Institute of Technology) was elected as a 2006 Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
* Kenneth H. Keller, the Charles M. Denny Jr. Professor of Science, Technology and Public Policy in the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs and former President of the University, has been named director of Johns Hopkins University's SAIS Bologna Center in Italy. He will be on a leave of absence from the University for this important assignment.
* Professor Claudia Neuhauser (College of Biological Sciences) has
been selected to receive a $1 million HHMI Professors award through
the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's 2006 Professors competition. The
HHMI selected 20 scientists who provide innovative leadership in
teaching as well as research. Neuhauser's project aims to better
integrate the teaching of math and science in the CBS undergraduate
curriculum, particularly to improve students' ability to use statistics
to solve biological and environmental problems.
* CLA junior Sarah J. Hampton has won a 2006 Beinecke Scholarship.
She is the first University student to win this prestigious national
award to support graduate study in the arts, humanities and social
sciences. Hampton, an honors student majoring in anthropology, will
spend the summer studying faunal remains at the medieval site of
Tulsk, Ireland, with the support of the University's Undergraduate
Research Opportunities Program (UROP).
* Professor Gordon Legge (College of Liberal Arts) will receive an honorary doctorate from the Université de Montréal.
* Professor Fred Morrison (Law School) has been invited to be a member of the Board of Curators (das Kuritorium) of the Max Planck Institute for International Law in Heidelberg, Germany.
* The University of Minnesota's Sawyer Seminar proposal, Humanitarianisms and World Orders, was one of eight selected by the Mellon Foundation.
2005-06 PROMOTION AND TENURE REVIEW COMPLETED:
I am pleased to forward to the Board of Regents this week recommendations for the promotion and/or tenure of 193 faculty members and for the continuous appointment promotions for 6 P&A employees. The 2005-06 annual P&T review resulted in 105 promotions from Assistant to Associate Professor with tenure; 5 awards of tenure in rank; 81 promotions only; and 2 determinations to continue in rank. I extend my sincere thanks to all who participated in the P&T review process, as well as to all who contributed to the development and advancement of our faculty colleagues.
TRANSFORMING THE U THROUGH STRATEGIC POSITIONING: UPDATE ON ACADEMIC
RECOMMENDATIONS:
After significant consultation with President Bruininks, other members of the president's executive team, and academic leaders across the campus, initial decisions are beginning to emerge from the recommendations of the first 11 academic task force reports received in February 2006. Following are some examples of first action steps toward implementation in various strategic action areas:
Strategic Action Area: Exceptional Students
By the end of next month, I will charge implementation committees to
develop plans for a campus-wide honors program and campus-wide writing
initiative, based on the recommendations from the Task Forces on
Undergraduate Reform for Honors and Writing. New programs will be in
place for Fall 2007.
Strategic Action Area: Exceptional Organization
Three newly configured collegiate units will open July 1, 2006:
College of Design; College of Education and Human Development; and
College of Food, Agricultural, and Natural Resource Sciences.
* The first phase of redesign has focused on administrative restructuring in preparation for a July 1 transition. It has been based largely upon the recommendations from several academic task forces on collegiate design and the Administrative Task Force, and has been a cooperative effort among the deans of the affected colleges and academic and administrative leaders in the Office of Human Resources and the Office of Academic Affairs and Provost. The redesigns incorporate best practice principles that will lead to greater efficiency and effectiveness of service, and are projected to result in savings of several million dollars to be reinvested in academic initiatives.
** The second phase of the redesign will occur primarily under the leadership of the collegiate dean, within the standard methods and processes of institutional management and oversight.
Strategic Action Area: Exceptional Innovation
I have appointed and charged an advisory committee to make
recommendations by early September specific to the design and
implementation of plans to create the Institute on the Environment.
The team is co-chaired by Professors Deborah Swackhamer (Water
Resources Center) and Stephen Polasky (Applied Economics) and includes
Efi Foufoula (Civil Engineering), Lucinda Johnson (Natural Resources
Research Institute), Anne Kapuscinski (Fisheries and Wildlife), Brad
Karkkainen (Law School), Peter McMurry (Mechanical Engineering), Peter
Reich (Forest Resources), Harvey Thorleifson (Minnesota Geological
Survey), and G. David Tilman (Ecology, Evolution and Behavior).
Revised recommendations from the strategic positioning task forces reporting in May will be available May 12 on the Transforming the U web site. Recommendations from these task forces will be vetted and considered over the summer.
THE STUDENT ENGAGEMENT PLANNER:
The Undergraduate Student Engagement Initiative received a $90,000
grant from the University's Service and Process Improvement Fund (SPIF)
to support development of a tool designed to link students with
opportunities for co-curricular engagement consistent with their
interests and academic majors. The Student Engagement Planner, under
the leadership of Vice Provost Jerry Rinehart, will identify learning
and developmental outcomes associated with various activities,
allowing students to work with faculty and advisers in developing
individualized pathways of engagement as students move through their
University experience.
To visualize transformation is not a simple task. Our goal to attain
world-class excellence will require our concerted effort. I extend
my sincere thanks to the hundreds of faculty, staff and students who
came together this year to serve the institution through the strategic
positioning initiative. I am confident that, together, we are
charting a course to ensure the University of Minnesota's success and
leadership in education, research, and public service in the 21st
century.
Have a great summer!
Sincerely,
E. Thomas Sullivan
Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost
Julius E. Davis
Chair in Law
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