Dear Colleagues:
I want to thank you for attending the recent State of the University Address and taking
time to hear our progress. If you were unable to attend, I encourage you to watch the full video presentation. I encourage your thoughts and feedback; feel free to reach out to me at president@winthrop.edu.
As we've passed the midpoint of the fall semester, I wanted to take a moment to update
you on a few items.
Institute on Teaching and Mentoring
Last week I once again attended the Compact for Faculty Diversity Institute on Teaching
and Mentoring conference held in Arlington, Virginia. I was joined by Vice Provost
for Faculty Affairs Takita Sumter and Chief Diversity Officer Zan Jones. Winthrop
has been a recruiter at this conference, which is the largest gathering of minority
Ph.D. scholars in the country, for the last four years. I enjoy attending and telling
others about Winthrop and the benefits of living, learning and working here. As you
know, increasing the diversity of our faculty and managerial staff is an important
objective of the Winthrop Plan, and this conference allows us to showcase Winthrop
to the best and brightest minds in higher education. This conference also hosts undergraduate
students in the McNair Scholars program and this year I was pleased that Winthrop
had three McNair students, along with Dr. Cheryl Fortner-Wood, in attendance.
Reorganization of Former University Relations Division
I would like to share some changes in our leadership structure that I am initiating
due to the vacancy created by Jeff Perez's departure. You may know that Jeff was responsible
for several areas: government and community relations, University Communications and
Marketing, and University Events.
Moving forward with an eye toward administrative savings, I have decided that government
and community relations as well as UCM will be housed within the Office of the President,
reporting to Kimberly Faust, vice president and chief of staff. University Events
will move to Finance and Business Affairs, under vice president and CFO Justin Oates.
This structure will allow us to more closely align our communications and marketing
efforts with strategic presidential outreach and board relations, as well as fold
University Events into our business operations, as UE continues to focus on contracts
and revenue generation. In addition, this will result in financial savings to the
university as we will not be filling the Vice President for University Relations position.
I appreciate Kimberly and Justin taking on these areas.
Board of Trustees Meeting
The Winthrop Board of Trustees will hold a two-day regular meeting Nov. 1-2. Subcommittees
will meet on Thursday afternoon, and Friday morning will include a special budget
presentation and the regular full board meeting. The board's meeting agenda will be
emailed to faculty and staff in advance of the meeting as usual.
Homecoming
I hope to see many of you at the various Homecoming events that will be held Nov.
12-17, whether that's the family friendly Homecoming on the Green on Friday evening
or Saturday's tailgating and women's and men's basketball games. This is always a
fun time to reconnect with our alumni and show off our beautiful campus. Read more about the week's activities.
As always, thank you for all that you do for Winthrop. I appreciate your support as
we work together on Winthrop's behalf.
Sincerely,
Dan
