This semester I am serving as interim associate dean for the Office of Scholarship at the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College. This is in addition to my more persistent role as a division director, and my interim role is to start implementing the recommendations of a task force — creating a more connected structure to support scholarly initiatives in the college, with scholarship broadly conceived. This includes but extends well beyond writing grant proposals. As a faculty member and as a division director, I know we need support for collaborative teams, a persistent connection between the extensive data from our own programs and both student and faculty engaged in scholarship, and a role for people who remind us that we create intellectual opportunities when planning scholarly projects for more than small-audience research journals. We are currently interviewing candidates for the position of a coordinator of scholarly initiatives, a professional role to provide critical connections among various roles, and we are now advertising for the associate dean position.
My goal is to build the structure with our senior assistant dean for grants and partnerships so that I can turn the keys over to a regularly-appointed associate dean in a get-in-it-and-drive condition. Want to be that associate dean? Read the Associate Dean of Scholarship job description, apply if interested, and nudge your friend who would be perfect at the job, too.