Josefine Gyllensporre/Staff Writer
On Aug. 12, 2013, the Provost’s Office will welcome Kathleen Wilson as its new Faculty Fellow. According to Provost Douglas Wartzok, Wilson’s professional background makes her an excellent candidate for the position.
Wilson is a senator at the United Faculty of Florida and associate director of the FIU’s School of Music. She has bachelors, masters and doctoral degrees in music related fields.
“She brings a lot of experience to the table already because she has served administrative roles. She came here as director of the School of Music. She has also served as president of UFF,” said Wartzok.
Wartzok sees the transition in a positive light, where a new professor will get the opportunity to understand the inner workings of the administration on campus and cascade down this information to faculty colleagues.
Wartzok said Wilson’s new position will ease communication between the administration and faculty.
“The other side of it is for the faculty fellow to understand more of the operations of the Provost’s office so that they can help explain it to the faculty and obviously within that they do a lot of projects. The biggest thing is to make sure that on both sides we recognize what the other group is doing, ” said Wartzok.
The University has seen three previous fellows. The Faculty Fellow program accepts only one professor per three-year term.
“I think it’s been very successful. It’s helped me immensely but I also think that it’s helped relationships with the faculty,” said Wartzok.
Wartzok said that although the fellowship is an administrative role, it will be beneficial when the candidate returns as faculty.
“This would give her the University-wide experience in academic administration, which I think will be beneficial for her personally and for when she goes back to the faculty and takes that perspective with her,” said Wartzok.
University administration — in particular the Office of the Provost — is engaged in efforts to improve the rate and speed of college graduates.
“Everyone in this office has that as a very important focus. We also have goals for improving our research profile and she will help us out as we think of other ways of supporting faculty,” said Wartzok.
Wartzok said that although Wilson will serve an essential role as a linking device between University administration and faculty, he will also look to her for advice.
“There are always several tradeoffs and decisions one has to make between what we would like to do and what we can actually do with the money that’s available and so I will look to her for advice,” said Wartzok.
Wilson was unavailable for comment as of press time for this story.
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