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Initiatives

The Office of the Provost takes on a number of initiatives to ensure that the academic operations of the University are effectively contributing to the overall mission of the institution. The below task force reports are just a sample of these initiatives:

• eLearning Task Force��- The eLearning Task Force was created to increase the University’s technical and substantive capacity to deliver quality eLearning programs, courses and degrees.
• Task Force on Celebrating Faculty Success��– The focus of this Task Force was to ensure faculty members are recognized for their most notable accomplishments in the areas of teaching, scholarship, and service.
• Honors Education Task Force - The Honors Education Task Force was charged with developing a proposal that would outline suggestions about increasing the number of high ability students who choose to attend ����ý because of its honors opportunities. The Taskforce was encouraged to think creatively about potential ideas and to study best practices at other institutions.��Read the full report��submitted in August 2011.��Read the principle recommendations��submitted in February 2012��
• Jupiter Life Science Initiative
• International Education Task Force��– This group’s activities included a cross-College conversation with the Provost, culminating in the creation of a report entitled “Top Needs in International Education at ����ý.”
• Task Force on Student Success ��- Our primary focus in the coming years will be implementing robust strategies for ongoing student success as measured by student retention and graduation rates, job placement, and acceptance in postgraduate or professional programs for those students who seek to continue their education beyond the baccalaureate degree. A major University-wide focused campaign, has been launched to address all issues associated with successful degree completion and these strategies will become part of the operational efficiency of ����ý going forward.
• Peace, Justice and Human Rights Initiative ��-��Building on ����ý's success of the Peace Studies Program, which is generously funded by the Schmidt Family Foundation, and supported by the Lynn-Wold-Schmidt Peace Studies Endowment, this university-wide initiative seeks to bring together the various entities on our campuses invested in the themes of Human Rights, Peace and Social Justice, both locally and globally.
• ��- Engaged learning, research, and service are the hallmarks of all great universities that strive to better the communities that surround them – be they local, national or global. This engagement seeds the dynamic exchange of ideas between the institution and its stakeholders and gives birth to relationships that result in positive change far greater than each could achieve standing alone.
• Mini-Terms ��-��are 5-and 8-week courses that run concurrently with the regular fall and spring semester. Intersession courses are 3-week online courses over winter break.
• ����ý Leadership and Professional Development Initiative (LPDI) ��- seeks to provide easy access to professional development services that meet the unique needs of ����ý faculty, leaders, and professional staff.