Dear Faculty and Staff —

Final candidates for the CHST dean position were present on campus early this week. Their campus visits were encouraging to individuals and search committees, and we are grateful for your warm welcome and participation in open forums and interviews.

On another personnel matter, we have made an offer to Ms. Allison Decker as Assistant Provost to succeed Natalie Taylor in this office, pending final approvals. Allison has worked at UIS earlier and has ten years of experience in higher education. Please join me in welcoming her to campus on April 20 as we assist her in making a smooth transition into Natalie’s position.

Work continues on tasks that involve everyone, especially in academic affairs: promotion and tenure reviews; interviews with candidates; shared governance and its integrity; enrollment pressures that create/drive staffing issues in high demand programs; and end of year festivities and awards for both students and faculty. Busy time for everybody.

I am leaving Wednesday at noon for a few days in Michigan with family and friends during this Easter season of renewal. Thus, this abbreviated weekly report to the campus.

Please enjoy this holiday as you prefer and think about what is possible as we continue to work together. This institution has had substantial past accomplishments and faces potentially a great future. Our challenge now is to fashion programs with necessary leadership and staffing resources for the changed work ahead in this century. It is hard to realize that most of our undergraduates will actually retire from the work force around the year 2070 – and how do we prepare them for a world more connected than at any time in history yet while some seek ways to isolate, to divide and to exclude others from modern life. This is our collective challenge for a quite different world.

Thank you,

Linda

Linda M. Delene, PhD

Interim Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs (VCAA) and Provost

University of Illinois Springfield