Academic Affairs Leadership Update
May 14, 2024
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Dear Roadrunner Community,
It is with great excitement I share that, effective immediately, Dr. Heather Shipley will assume the permanent position of Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs. Dr. Shipley has established a strong foundation of trust and provided great stability for faculty and the university’s leadership team, so much so that many colleagues have reached out to affirm her incredible work as a comprehensive leader. I have met with the leadership of the Faculty Senate, Staff Senate, Chairs Council and SGA, as well as with Deans, Academic Council, Cabinet, and UT System for important input and concurrence, which has been unanimously supportive. Throughout her tenure at UTSA, Dr. Shipley has made tremendous contributions to advancing student success, enhancing experiential learning opportunities, and recruiting, retaining and developing faculty to advance our academic enterprise. Her leadership directly contributed to achieving our designation as a Carnegie R1 Institution in 2021. She also spearheaded the Classroom to Career initiative task force to establish an integrated campus-wide framework to align existing experiential learning programs and identify new strategic partnerships. As a result, UTSA established the Career-Engaged Learning unit, which directly improves engagement with area employers to increase measures of student success in the workplace. In collaboration with the Office of Research and UT System, Dr. Shipley leads the Clustered & Connected Hiring Program (CCP) to recruit and hire top talent to advance the competitiveness of our knowledge enterprise. An advocate for faculty mentorship, she established the Faculty Success unit. Most recently, Dr. Shipley has played and will continue to play a critical role in the strategic hiring of key academic leaders, including, but not limited to, the dean of the Klesse College of Engineering and Integrated Design, the dean of the College of Sciences and the dean of the new college bringing together AI, cyber, computing and data science. Outside of UTSA, Dr. Shipley is deeply involved with the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities, especially regarding the association’s work in faculty affairs and modernizing scholarship for the public good. Dr. Shipley knows our UTSA community—she has been a faculty member, chair, dean and senior administrator. She is a servant-leader who holds a deep knowledge of our academic community and a genuine interest in the mentorship of our faculty and students. As we look ahead to the remainder of this year and beyond, her leadership will provide a foundation for continued and stable progress. I am confident she will continue to propel the success of our faculty and their great work to steward UTSA toward achieving our three strategic destinations. I want to express my deep gratitude to Provost and Executive Vice President Shipley for her leadership, and I hope you will join me in congratulating her when you see her around campus. With appreciation, |
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Taylor Eighmy
President |
