Letter to the Reynolda Campus faculty and staff members

Dear Faculty and Staff Members,

The fall semester has been filled with activities and achievements that reaffirm the optimism I have about Wake Forest’s future. Students, faculty, and staff have all contributed to creating this very productive opening of our academic year.

Our Board of Trustees met last Thursday and Friday. They heard a detailed report from Provost Jill Tiefenthaler about our strategic planning process, along with a compendium of key indicators of the University’s overall academic and fiscal status. The Provost included information about how the plan will be communicated with faculty and staff later this year and, after probable revisions based on feedback, will be presented to the Board in its initial form in February 2008. We hope for final approval at the April 2008 Board meeting.

You will have an opportunity to review and respond to the first draft of the plan, beginning on Monday, October 29, when it will be posted online on WIN. Please check Window on Wake Forest on Friday, October 26, for specific directions about how you can access it. After you have had a chance to review the plan, the University Senate will host a faculty-staff forum on the plan on Thursday, November 1, at 4 p.m. in Benson Center’s Pugh Auditorium to address your questions and receive your comments.

Our associate provosts have also been intensely involved in developing various aspects of the plan. I am especially pleased with the “Thursdays at Starling” programs, which bring together faculty and staff for a formal information session about faculty activities and an informal time to visit and become better acquainted or renew acquaintances. This activity, and others like it, strengthen our community — a major priority of strategic planning.

Academic and cultural events on campus also offer opportunities for us to come together as a community. Following the superb conference on immigration that was planned by Dr. David Coates and Dr. Peter Siavelis, I encourage all of you to attend two more important events this month. Our next “Voices of Our Time” lecture will be Thursday, October 25, at 7 p.m. in Wait Chapel, with an address by distinguished journalist Bob Schieffer. Mr. Schieffer has had a fifty-year career as a newsman, and I am certain his remarks will give us interesting perspectives on issues of ongoing importance in the nation and the world. Mr. Schieffer will sign books from 3:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. in the third floor lobby of Benson University Center on October 25, so you will be able to meet him at that time.

Fall Convocation, on October 30 at 11 a.m. in Wait Chapel, will feature an address by Dr. James Billington, Librarian of Congress. His speech is titled “The Future of Freedom.” In addition to Dr. Billington’s address, we will present several faculty awards during convocation, and I hope you will be there to honor our colleagues.

We have had several new appointments and administrative activity in recent weeks. Graduate School Dean Lorna Moore has appointed Dr. Linda McPhail to a three-year term as associate dean of graduate programs on the Bowman Gray Campus, and Dr. Cecelia Solano to a one-year term as associate dean of graduate programs on the Reynolda Campus.

Provost Tiefenthaler will lead a search committee for the new dean of our business schools. Committee members are Umit Akinc, Holly Brower, and Terry Baker from the Calloway School; Charles Iacovou, Michelle Roehm, and Bruce Resnick from the Babcock School; Jacque Fetrow from the College and Graduate School; Blake Morant, from the Law School; Doug Edgeton from the Bowman Gray Campus; Tom Dingledine (’78 MBA), of the Babcock School Board of Visitors; and Eric Eubank (’86 BS), of the Calloway School Board of Visitors.

We have added several new members to the Staff Advisory Council. They are Randy Cockerham, Facilities Management; Nicolle Gaillard, Purchasing; Julie Griffin, Athletics; Cynthia Hall, Romance Languages; Carolyn Potts, Student Health Services; Ellen Makaravage, Worrell Professional Center Library; Gale Newport, Benson University Center; and Mike Tesh, Human Resources. They join current members Gary Alwine, Biology; Kathy Bunn, Summer School Office; Matt Cullinan, Administration; Maureen Eggert, Worrell Professional Center Library; Kelvin Green, Facilities Management; Julie Groves, Financial and Accounting Services; Dana Hutchens, Career Services; Sherry Long, Athletics; Chris McLaughlin, Information Systems; and Gloria Stickney, Research and Sponsored Programs.

In other administrative news, we recently combined Facilities Management and Campus Services and Planning into a single department. Because these two departments work closely in providing a wide variety of services to the campus, the merger is intended to improve those services by streamlining coordination and efficiently integrating daily operations. Dining Services, Conference Services and Vending Operations, which will continue to be managed by Connie Carson, will now report to Jim Alty, Assistant Vice President for Facilities and Campus Services, as the new department will be known.

The campus master planning process is underway. Forums held on September 18 and October 9 provided the first opportunities for campus discussion. Decisions regarding the campus plan will necessarily be driven by results of the strategic plan; and to make those decisions wisely, we must first have looked at our current infrastructure as well as campus green space, campus use patterns, and a number of other components.

Finally, I commend our students for their planning of the President’s Ball on last Saturday evening. I enjoyed seeing many of you there, and I hope you enjoyed the event as much as Julie and I did.

Sincerely,

Nathan O. Hatch
President

Archives