Positions giving more attention to undergraduate education

Vice Provost of Undergraduate Education Sonya Stephens and Vice Provost of Faculty and Academic Affairs Thomas Gieryn face many challenges, as well as great opportunities.  

It has been four months since the dean of faculty position was eliminated, and its responsibilities have been split between the two new positions occupied by Stephens and Gieryn.

The Office of the Provost sees this as the first time so much attention can be devoted to undergraduate education.

Although Stephens said she could not yet share details because things are subject to change, the office is working on what she called “really exciting projects that will change the undergraduate experience.”

“We have a large office to manage,” she said. “All these things support undergraduate education in ways which are very important but in many ways invisible.”

Stephens said that as of 2011, the IU-Bloomington campus will have a general education requirement, regardless of  to which school students belong. This requirement will consist of 31 credit hours. The committee that is forming the agenda for this requirement consists of hundreds of faculty who are submitting and reviewing possible courses.

“Part of the intention of creating this office was to provide a home for general education,” Stephens said, as she and Munirpallam Venkataramanan, chairman of the Kelley School of Business undergraduate program, will serve as co-chairs of the general education program.

This initiative will come at a time when Indiana’s Core 40, which outlines a more rigorous curriculum for high school students, gets underway.

The Office of the Provost is looking toward incorporating more technology into learning and administrative practices as a means to “enhance the undergraduate experience.”

At the end of every school year, each faculty member must submit a report of what he or she accomplished that year, including courses, publications, performances and service activities. This procedure has always been done on a Word document or on paper, Gieryn said.

Gieryn said they will be digitizing this procedure for online use so a dean or department chair can retrieve data and perform an analysis.

“We run competitive course development opportunities for faculty and AIs so they can apply and get money to develop undergraduate classes,” Gieryn said.

Gieryn said that this is a faculty development issue but also deals with undergraduate education. Therefore, both Stephens and Gieryn work together to help run the program.

“This is typically how we handle the grey areas,” Gieryn said. “We both see that the campus benefits to the extent that we can cooperate, and we’ve been doing that.”

With IU experiencing a spending cut and freezes in salaries and construction, it is hazy how much can be accomplished, but the Office of the Provost sees no reason why its planned projects should not come through.

Stephens said the office will not be getting more money and will have to do more with less.

One of the ways to overcome this “is to collaborate efficiently (and) to think about ways of using existing resources in efficient ways,” Stephens said.

“I think that’s what we are engaged in right now,” she said.

Stephens has been doing that. Her office has “reorganized internally to create savings to make this office possible,” she said. The budget office, IT and special projects have all been centralized.

“We’ve kind of reduced the staffing, but I think because of the way the office is now organized, there’s more attention being paid,” Stephens said.

A system that seems highly administrative is now trying to give students a more prominent voice.

The Office of the Provost is trying to create a student advisory board to educate students, propose changes and review some administrative activities, Stephens said.

She said the office is out to serve the students.