Campus Connection

Q & A with our new provost

When you arrived on campus in 1993, what were your plans for your career? Did you think of becoming an administrator? It was not my goal to become an administrator. However, early in my career I found that I like many aspects of administration — namely the ability to help get some good work done. I resisted more senior administration for many years because I did not want to give up teaching. It is still the thing I miss the most. The ability to watch and hopefully play a role in enhancing student learning is a really great profession. When you are a faculty member, most days, you know how or when you have helped. As an administrator, there are too many days that you wonder how your work has positively impacted students. Mostly, I see my job as trying to help faculty be the best that they can be with the knowledge that students will benefit from strong instructors. There are days, though, when I wish I could have sat next to a student with some SPSS (statistical software) output and be puzzled over the meaning of the result. [caption id="attachment_48571" align="alignleft" width="272"] Betsy Morgan, Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs.[/caption] What have been the most positive changes on campus since that time? Over the past few decades, a few of the positive changes have been a more diverse student body (a trend that I hope continues) including many more transfers from when I started, a student profile that is more academically strong, a larger number of new faculty, many new facilities and a lower student-faculty ratio. Unfortunately, over my time here, there has been a weakening of state support for higher education, both in terms of money and valuing of what we do. So, what does the provost of a university actually do? Very few people know what a provost is or does. I think the best title is “chief academic officer,” not because of how it sounds, but because it better conveys that the role is to oversee the academic side of the house. Provosts are almost always academics who have chosen to do administrative work. If you look at provosts around the country, there is significant variation in the units that report to them. However, the Provost always has all of the credit-bearing units. Units such as Career Services and Admissions, and sometimes all of Student Affairs, can report to the provost. There are pros and cons to various models. You’ve held the interim role for nearly two years. What do you like most about the job? One of the things that I like about the job is the “bird’s eye” view of the university. It is fun and exciting to see how the pieces can come together. I also like the ability to help enact change. Most recently, I had the opportunity to pull together a task force to look at career and advising issues associated with pre-health undergraduates. The “issue” of pre-health students spans two major colleges (CSH and CLS) and therefore needs someone in a provost’s role to assemble a representational committee. I expected all of the personnel components of the job and I like the more traditional academic parts of the job — review of faculty, student learning assessment, and academic program review. This sounds whiny, but in terms of a “dislike,” it would be the amount of time I have to spend on budget-related issues and UW System and state policy implementation. As with all of us who have been at UWL for some time, the existence of so many more new rules and regulations can make it challenging just to do our jobs. Now with the “interim” title removed, what are your plans for the next five-10 years with UWL’s academics? What are the additional challenges with the current budget proposals for the UW System? One of the reasons I’m so supportive of UWL’s strategic planning process is that my plans are to enact the university’s plans. Of the many flanks of the plan, the component I’m most personally attracted to is the idea of increasing the retention rate of our students in some of the subgroups that traditionally have lower retention rates. The work excites me because there are known programs associated with increased positive outcomes. In terms of academic affairs, budget cuts to me mean prioritizing. I am not the type of person who says “lets’ do more with less.” I lean much more to say, “We cannot be all things to all people,” — which means we have to make strategic choices about programs that we are offering. Since being named provost, you’ve been not only facing a new official role at work, but also in your health by battling breast cancer with a good prognosis. How have you been able to balance work and chemo treatments? It was quite a week to get a cancer diagnosis and the offer of the provost position within a few days of each other — a form of the yin/yang that can be the sucky side of life. One of the jobs of the provost is to support and promote the work of my units. Because of the treatment schedule and being tired, I have cut out almost all of the more “social” obligations, such as attending speakers and events. I don’t think I realized how much a part of my job it is and how important I find it. My job is to represent my units and I’m better at that if I know more of the intricacies. Traditionally, I would spend several hours, for instance, at the Celebration of Undergraduate Research and Creativity Day. This year, it is a chemo day and I won’t even be there. It is the first one I will miss since its inception. Now, when I go, the students have no idea who I am, but I like being there and learning about topics I know nothing about. I know that my energy will come back in several months, but facing chemo, surgery and radiation makes me worry that I will let a ball drop. Meanwhile, the community has been extraordinary in response to this diagnosis. People have been amazing. And, despite some changes, we have great health insurance at UWL and great health care institutions in town. I am glad that my children are raised. When I go home, I can just crash and only have to take care of myself. What? You asked about my children? I have identical twin boys, Adam and Zach, who will be 25 in July. Zach will start a PhD program in Human Computer Interaction at University of Minnesota this fall and Adam is pursuing work associated with dramaturgy and theatre. They are my pride and joy.