Overview
In accordance with the President’s Strategic Plan and Goal #5—to relentlessly pursue institutional effectiveness—the Georgia Tech Provost’s Office implements Vice Provost Unit External Reviews. Vice Provost Unit External Review is a collaborative process designed to bring the professional judgment and input of respected colleagues in assessing and improving the quality of Vice Provost Units and the services they provide in the areas of enrollment management, undergraduate education, graduate education, faculty development, and international education and initiative development. Each Vice Provost Unit will participate in gathering information about the unit, reviewing and analyzing this information to produce a self-study, selecting an external review committee (approved by the Provost), preparing for and facilitating a site-visit, responding to the external reviewers’ report and recommendations for improvement, and following up to ensure that the unit is supported in its efforts forongoing improvement.
Purpose of the Review
The Vice Provost Unit External Review in the Office of the Provost at Georgia Institute of Technology is a comprehensive and meaningful effectiveness process aimed at determining how well a unit achieves its stated mission, goals, and/or chief responsibilities and appropriateness of scope. In the spirit of continuous improvement, the process helps units determine how best to create and sustain program excellence. Through intentional, reflective self-study, external review, and careful action planning, units identify how they can be preeminent among their peer institutions.
The Reviewers & On-Campus Review Information
The members of the external review committee are:
Dr. Amy Burkert
Vice Provost for Education
Carnegie Mellon University
Amy L. Burkert is Vice Provost for Education at Carnegie Mellon University. She is responsible for university-wide education initiatives at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.
She has been active in a wide variety of projects that focus on the undergraduate learning experience. She played a major part in creating new opportunities for CMU undergraduates to conduct their own research projects through her work on a summer research project funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institution and through the NSF-funded Research Experiences for Students program. She collaborated in the creation of an introductory Biological Sciences course for CMU’s Open Learning Initiative, which is regarded as among the effective technology-enhanced learning options currently available. Dr. Burkert has spearheaded the development of new pathways for students to grow intellectually and personally, especially during their undergraduate years. She helped to create new interdisciplinary options (the Bachelor of Science and Arts degree and the Science and Humanities Scholars Program); the unified major in biological sciences and psychology; the biomedical engineering minor for non-engineering students; and the minor in health care policy and management.
Dr. Gregory Heileman
Associate Provost of Student & Academic Life
University of Kentucky
Gregory L. Heileman serves as the Associate Provost for Student and Academic Life at the University of Kentucky. In this capacity, he supports the goals of the University through vision and direction of the Student and Academic Life division.
Dr. Heileman serves as chief advisor to the Provost in recommending new university-wide initiatives and special programs that support students across the four pillars of student success. Framing their work across the four pillars, he and his team are working to increase UK’s retention and graduation rates, crucial goals within the institution’s Strategic Plan. Dr. Heileman collaborates with the Provost, deans, and other campus units to develop and execute goals for success, while coordinating policies and programs across the spectrum of student services. Work taking place in the Office of Student and Academic Life is grounded in the most up-to-date literature and in line with the university’s curricular and co-curricular goals.
Dr. Rachel Holloway
Vice Provost for Undergraduate Academic Affairs
Virginia Polytechnic Institute
Dr. Rachel Holloway serves as the vice provost for undergraduate academic affairs at Virginia Polytechnic Institute.
Holloway oversees the strategies, programs, and resources that support the undergraduate educational experience at Virginia Tech. In addition, she works closely with college deans, associate deans, and other vice provosts to coordinate strategic initiatives to advance Virginia Tech’s undergraduate education profile. Holloway directly oversees areas that enhance the overall undergraduate experience such as academic support services, student success, University Studies, University Honors, First Year Experiences, undergraduate research, the Undergraduate Honor System, and the revision of the current Curriculum for Liberal Education.
Dr. Carolyn Thomas
Vice Provost & Dean for Undergraduate Education
University of California, Davis
Carolyn Thomas is Professor of American Studies and Vice Provost and Dean for Undergraduate Education at the University of California, Davis. She works across our colleges and divisions and directly with students to achieve Undergraduate Education’s vision: that UC Davis have the strongest learning environment of any research university in the nation.
As a faculty member, Carolyn’s research has explored how technological innovation and food production, combined with marketing and advertising, impact Americans’ definitions of “health.” She has been featured on NPR and the BBC for her award-winning book, Empty Pleasures: The Story of Artificial Sweeteners from Saccharin to Splenda (2010). She has written two books, two edited volumes, and roughly twenty articles on such topics as the origins of weight training, the mechanization of tomatoes in California, the fondness for Krispy Kreme donuts in the South, and the ineffectiveness of “diet” foods as weight-loss tools. Carolyn is the recipient of the Chancellor’s Award for Distinguished Undergraduate Mentoring at UC Davis, and her current research and administrative work focuses on enhancing student academic success through teaching and advising.
Opening Welcome & Overview from Vice Provost Potts
Dear External Reviewers and GT Colleagues,
I am proud to present the external review self-study for the Office of Undergraduate Education (OUE). This document represents the culmination of several months of hard work, putting together documentation and critical reflection on how our programs, services, and staff across OUE are currently serving our undergraduate students, faculty, and the Institute and what we should be prioritizing and contemplating as we plan for the near future. I especially want to thank the team who led the development of it: Dr. Roberta Berry, Director of the Honors Program and Associate Professor in the School of Public Policy; Mr. Cory Hopkins, OUE’s Communication Specialist; Dr. Casey Chaviano, OUE’s Undergraduate Assessment Specialist; and Dr. Steven Girardot, my Associate Vice Provost—as well as all of OUE’s leadership and staff who contributed content and data, reviewed and edited drafts, and assisted in many other ways.
As an organizational entity, OUE is a relatively new division within Georgia Tech and the Office of the Provost, having been established in fall 2011 after a re-organization of the Provost’s Office (an organizational history and timeline is shown on page 22). At the start of his time at GT, Provost Bras recognized the importance of having dedicated leadership and strategic direction for undergraduate education. In spring 2012, I was privileged to be selected as the first Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education and began in August of that year. As Vice Provost, I am not only charged with leading OUE, but also with providing Institute-level leadership for undergraduate curriculum and general education. Reporting directly to the Provost and participating on his leadership team, I also serve as a member of the President’s Cabinet, University System of Georgia (USG) General Education Council, and am a tenured professor in the School of Interactive Computing in the College of Computing.
As of today, OUE consists of 63 staff members (including 4 vacant positions) and seven units: the Center for Academic Enrichment (CAE); the Center for Academic Success (CAS), the Center for Career Discovery and Development (C2D2), the Honors Program (HP), the Center for Serve-Learn Sustain (SLS), Summer Session Initiatives (SSI), and Undergraduate Academic Advising (UAA). The Office of the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education (OVPUE), which is led by the Associate Vice Provost, provides centralized and shared service support for all OUE units in areas such as finance, HR, IT, data management, assessment, communication and marketing, and special event support. Each director or executive director of these units, as well the Associate Vice Provost, serves on my leadership team that meets monthly. An overview of the leadership team and their backgrounds and areas of responsibility is provided on page 21, and a complete organizational chart is provided on page 25.
Contained in this self-study is an introduction to Georgia Tech and OUE, including an institutional profile that highlights key demographics about our undergraduate students, colleges, and curriculum; an overview of the leadership and organizational structure of OUE; a description of our approach to assessment and continuous improvement; a summary of Complete College Georgia (CCG), a statewide initiative that has motivated the development of many new initiatives for student success; and an introduction to our Student Advisory Board, an important and critical body that provides direct student input to my leadership team and me. Following this is an overview of our mission, vision, and strategic planning efforts; self-studies for each of the seven OUE units, where you will find detailed information about our staff, programs, services, data and assessment, resources, and plans for the future; and finally an overview of our facilities and spaces. An online appendix will allow you an opportunity to pursue more of our program-level data; digital versions of many of our brochures and print materials; and other resources that may help you learn more about OUE. I invite you to browse our website, oue.gatech.edu as well.
In fall 2017, recognizing the 5-year mark of the establishment of OUE, I established OUE 2020, a strategic planning initiative for designing and implementing immediate and strategic policies and programs to advance OUE’s mission by the close of 2019. I asked Dr. Roberta Berry, Director of the Honors Program, to lead this group, which consists of staff from every unit in OUE as well as the Associate Vice Provost. More information may be found here.
Click here to visit the OUE Self-Study Resources page to see the full report, as well as additional supporting materials.