Provost Blog

In the cycle of the academic calendar, endings are a time of both reflection and looking ahead to new beginnings. That is true for all of us on campus, but the endings and beginnings are more pronounced for faculty as the months of summer look markedly different from the months of the semesters. I've come to better appreciate the more subtle endings and beginnings cycle for academic administrators as well. I was out on a run the other day and found myself thinking about last August, when the academic year started. Then, I was a bundle of anxiety about change, but also full of hope for the year ahead. I believed then, and I still do now, that our institutional foundations were strong enough to not just weather but thrive in the changes ahead. I was keenly aware that our academic leadership team needed to steer a steady course, and confident that we would do just that. While I was certainly curious to see what this new season for Christopher Newport would bring, I was also excited to...

 I had the opportunity over break to make some headway on the ever-growing pile of books to read. One in particular, about sustained excellence in higher education, really got me thinking about our challenges and opportunities. The book is Becoming Great Universities - Small Steps for Sustained Excellence by Richard J. Light and Allison Jegla (Princeton University Press, 2022). Light and Jegla's study focuses on what they describe as ten core challenges that most colleges and universities face. They admit, there are clearly many more than ten challenges faced by colleges and universities today. These are common challenges as identified by Light through a series of several hundred interviews. In discussing each, they offer examples of institutions that have successfully addressed them, as well as some cautionary tales of failure. While I think in one way or another Christopher Newport faces all ten of the challenges that Light and Jegla focus on in their book, as I consider our nea...