Last September, in his inaugural blog post, Provost Robert Groves wrote to the student body that we live in a time of transition in higher education and he declared his goal to examine ways to increase efficient learning and incorporate the best methods as soon as possible. Over the last six months, Groves has taken many steps to implement this reassessment of Georgetown’s academics and his next step is the reorganization of his office.
In an email to the student body last Wednesday, as well as in an accompanying blog post, Groves announced he will be creating three new vice provost positions which will be filled by existing faculty. The vice provosts will specialize in education, faculty, and research, and each position will rotate every three years. A selection committee is currently in the works and will be composed of faculty members from multiple schools who are highly respected across campus. Groves is also creating the new positions of Vice President for Finance and Program Analytics and Chief Operating Officer for the main campus.
Currently, Groves is the only faculty member in his office, which in Groves’s opinion is unsustainable. “Not having faculty members down the hall isn’t good for me,” Groves said. “I really need to be able to walk into someone’s office and say, ‘What do you think about this idea?’ and have it be answered by someone who knows the faculty.”
Groves is seeking to bridge the gap between faculty and academic administrators common to many universities. In an email to the Voice, Prof. James Collins, who has 27 years of experience at Georgetown, wrote that although he is always suspicious of adding another level of administration, he approves of filling spots with rotating members of faculty. “That way,” Collins wrote, “the ex-administrator has to live, as a faculty member, with decisions he or she took.”
Prof. Robert Lieber, described the idea of rotating vice provosts from faculty as “advantageous … it means they will know a great deal about the University.”
Groves admitted there are potential setbacks to his plan, including the fact appointed faculty would have less time to teach, narrowing student access to talented professors. Additionally, the rotation of the vice provosts means that new training will be required every three or six years.
One of the biggest challenges to Groves’s reform efforts is a lack of hard data. “If a program wants to get better … and they say, ‘How are we doing?’ we haven’t actually assembled the data for them to answer that question,” Groves said.
Collins agrees this is a problem that needs to be addressed. “We do not seem to have what I consider to be sound information about our various programs,” Collins wrote. “For example, what sort of return are we getting for our investment in the History PhD program? Without such data, we are just guessing.” By appointing a new Vice President for Finance and Program Analytics who oversees both the main campus Finance Office and the Office of Assessment and Program Analytics, Groves aims to integrate financial and academic performance data.
The reorganization of the office also includes the appointment of a main campus COO to report to both the provost and Georgetown’s current COO Chris Augostini, which Groves describes as the “instantiation” of the integration of administration and academia.
The main campus COO will be concerned more with common student issues. For example, Groves recently met with representatives from disabled students who pointed out accessibility issues on campus. “[They gave] a bunch of examples, and with each added example, it became more embarrassing,” Groves said. With the creation of the new COO position, Groves will be free to focus on big picture issues.
Groves’s overarching concern is adapting Georgetown to a rapidly developing economy and role of academia. “The hardest thing to know … is what is the knowledge set that we should preserve and promote for students to learn as knowledge itself greatly expands and diversifies?” Groves said. “At a certain point, we really have to talk about the organization of knowledge.” He emphasized the significance of faculty involvement in these discussions, stating that “any change has to be really accepted and hopefully led by [faculty].”
All of this is laying a foundation for broader changes to come. Groves wants to expand undergraduate research and interdisciplinary opportunities; strengthen science, technology, engineering, and math education, and cultivate a more diverse faculty—but these changes will not come at the expense of any one program or school. “It’s not a zero-sum game,” Groves said. “It’s interdisciplinary. If there’s a niche for Georgetown, that’s it—blending together the disciplines.”