Dana Dunn’s promotion to vice president for academic affairs will allow her to take on some of the provost’s responsibilities such as interacting with deans and department chairs. Dunn will also oversee enrollment management, which includes course scheduling.

University President Robert Witt said that Dr. Dunn was promoted, primarily, to help Provost George Wright in his duties. Dr. Witt said that a great deal of decisions and paperwork flow through the provost’s office every day.

“We could make the provost’s office more effective by changing Dunn’s title, giving her substantially more authority, broadening her scope of responsibility and taking a portion of the provost’s day-to-day responsibilities off his desk to allow him to be outside more.”

Dr. Wright’s responsibilities will include working off campus to build better relationships with the UT System and with area junior colleges.

Dunn said her former job, as senior vice provost for academic affairs, will not be filled because she will still be doing those duties.

“I will be taking on more responsibility in academic affairs so the provost can turn more attention toward outreach projects,” she said.

Some of her new responsibilities will  include making sure departmental chairs and deans have enough instructional resources and technology to support their course schedules.
Witt said that Dunn, in her new role, has some departments reporting directly to her, such as Distance Education and Institutional Research and Planning. 

“Her portfolio of responsibilities are duties assigned by the provost and, in some cases, by me directly,” he said. “She has a solid-line reporting relationship to the provost, and a dotted-line reporting relationship to me.”

Witt said one of the responsibilities he has assigned to Dunn is to be the university’s senior officer in charge of enrollment management, which includes developing the course schedule and making sure courses are available when students want them.

Though Dunn’s title seems broad, the university has vice presidents in charge of graduate and undergraduate affairs.

Mary Ridgway holds the title of vice president for undergraduate academic and student affairs. Witt said Ridgway’s entire portfolio involves undergraduate academic issues. Dale Anderson, vice president for research and graduate studies, is in charge of research and all of the graduate programs.

Dunn’s job as senior officer for enrollment management cuts across undergraduate and graduate lines. Her job heading up distance education also includes both undergraduate and graduate courses.

Dr. Ridgway said recruitment, retention and enrollment are some of the areas where she and Dunn will work together.

“I couldn’t think of a more deserving and more competent person for the position,” she said.

Two of the departments that will now report directly to Dunn are audio visual services and distance education. 

Chuck Pratt, audio visual services director, said his department is looking for new ways to promote the university under Dunn’s supervision.

“We’ve been allowed to take the ball and run with it,” Pratt said.

Some of the high profile and promotional projects, he said, include broadcasting classes on cable channels, and developing Web sites for university departments,and Internet media distribution for online classes. Dunn said the audio visual department will also be involved in producing television commercials for the university.

Distance Education Director Pete Smith said his department is reporting to Dunn now as well. He said that in the past, his department has been involved mostly with developing online classes, but now it is being included in recruitment.

Be first to comment this article

Powered by AkoComment Tweaked Special Edition v.1.4.6
AkoComment © Copyright 2004 by Arthur Konze - www.mamboportal.com
All right reserved