Skip to content Skip to main navigation Skip to footer

Provost Fellow Awards 2020-21

As established by former Executive Vice President and Provost, Dr. Stephen Kolison, a funding opportunity for newly established Provost Fellows was created. For 2020-2021 the inaugural opportunity was given to the Shaheen College of Arts & Sciences. However, in future years the awards will be expanded to all schools within UIndy. The purpose of the awards is to support leadership development for college and school-level administration as well as, more broadly, higher education administration. Successful applicants will have the opportunity to demonstrate their leadership potential through the implementation of a project in one of eight focus areas for the benefit of Shaheen College.

Focus Areas
The focus areas identified below are based upon the perceived needs of Shaheen College. Please note this list of project ideas is not exhaustive, other potential projects may be equally beneficial to the College.

  • Accreditation
  • Assessment
  • Strategic Plan
  • Faculty Advancement
  • Graduate Leadership
  • General Education
  • Institutional Research
  • Other College Leadership

2020-21 Provost Fellows and Projects (Shaheen College of Arts and Sciences)

Eduard Arriaga
Assistant Professor and Chair
Department of Global Languages

General Education in the Digital Age aims to survey models and experiences from other colleges and institutions of higher education who have incorporated digital humanities and digital scholarship –as interdisciplinary endeavors– to revitalize the general education/liberal arts curriculum. Digital technologies not only influence but radically change both the way we produce, store, and disseminate knowledge, as well as the skills we need to fully participate in our societies. With that idea in mind, this project expects to learn from other experiences to start discussing a concrete path to collaboration, interdisciplinarity, and revitalization of UIndy’s General Core Curriculum.

Joseph Herzog
Assistant Professor
RB Annis School of Engineering

This project has two areas of focus: 1.) Developing and preparing two new programs for ABET accreditation: Electrical Engineering and Computer Engineering, and 2.) Exploring ways to integrate the Shaheen College of Arts and Sciences with the R.B. Annis School of Engineering.

Karen Newman
Associate Professor
Department of English

Project description: 1.) To develop our infrastructure for increased global and international engagement. 2.) To write two competitive federal grants and lay the groundwork for a third grant relating to study abroad and ESL teacher education, totaling nearly $1.8 million. 3.) To support interdisciplinary initiatives around International Education Month.

Kevin Whiteacre
Professor and Chair
Department of Criminal Justice

This project will involve working with full-time and adjunct faculty in the Department of Criminal Justice to: 1.) identify appropriate objective and valid, evidence-based class learning outcome measures from peer-reviewed research literature; 2.) create, administer, and validate instruments built using the identified measures; and 3.) write up the results as a possible model for adopting objective, evidence-based course outcome measures for others in the university community interested in such an approach.

Laura Merrifield Wilson
Associate Professor
Department of History & Political Science

This project is focusing on the articulation and analysis of our efforts in fulfilling the Shaheen College’s strategic plan. It includes gathering and assessing information, allowing us to see where our strengths have been as a college in achieving components of the strategic plan and where opportunities for future progress and potential realignment as we continue to grow.

Colleen Wynn
Assistant Professor
Department of Sociology

This project will create alumni surveys for the college and departments, as well as develop a core set of SCAS questions focused on larger college-level goals that all interested departments can use in their surveys. Topics for these might include: job satisfaction, career preparation from major courses, how often the skills learned in their major are used in their job along with basic employment information and demographics. The project will help interested departments develop some supplementary questions that are particular to their department to be added to their survey. Departments will send out the surveys to their alumni. This data will hopefully help departments highlight what they are doing well and to find areas for improvement. Having the departments involved in the development of questions, collection, and interpretation of data will be essential as they can provide context for the data that the numbers alone cannot give.