Office of the Provost
Provost’s Office Monthly – February 2023
Spring 2023 Pop-Up Courses
Pop-up classes are taught online in a multidisciplinary and integrated fashion by faculty from various schools and colleges and are offered to faculty, staff and students on topics of shared interest to the community and national or international importance.
Why the Jews? Confronting Antisemitism
Antisemitism has often been described as the “oldest hatred.” Yet the term “antisemitism” is a modern formulation, coined in Germany in the 1870s a badge of pride by German nationalists who feared Jews posed a danger to “true German culture.” Why should the so-called “anti-semites” define who or what Jews and Judaism are? Just as the broad range of Jewish experiences around the globe over thousands of years defies easy categorization, hatred of Jews has taken so many forms from antiquity to the present that it also resists simple categorization or definition. Why have the Jewish people been such convenient targets for any number of agendas and ideologies? What accounts for the persistence of numerous anti-Jewish tropes that run the gamut from “Christ-killer” to socialist, capitalist, parasite, and purveyor of global power? This course will first and foremost introduce students to the diverse nature of Jewish identity, before examining the many manifestations of Jewish hatred throughout history, and the ways in which Jews have attempted to respond to a hatred that refuses to disappear.
Transformation Now
This course provides a brief, detailed historical account of gender, the language that has shaped gender, the laws that have defined gender, and the various transnational revolutions that have taken place to redefine gender altogether. Students will be able to recognize how essentialist/biological determinist beliefs are used by institutions to reinforce systemic oppression so they may develop skills to transform their communities.
Executive Leader Onboarding
Another session of the Executive Leader Onboarding series was held on Thursday, February 9 at the UConn Waterbury campus. Senior administrators participated in dynamic discussions with University Safety and ITS about safety in the workplace and online. Participants learned about university safety resources, emergency response guidelines, and how the University manages critical incidents on-campus. They also received an overview of the IT support systems and structures at UConn and UConn Health, with a focus on the overarching goals of ensuring IT security. Waterbury Campus Director Fumiko Hoeft also presented on the highlights of UConn Waterbury and led an exciting tour of the campus.
Student Athlete 3.0 Night
On February 15, the Student Athlete Success Program and Division of Athletics held their annual 3.0 Night celebration at the UConn Women’s basketball game vs. CCSU. The event recognized student athletes who achieved a 3.0 or better in the Spring ’22 and/or Fall ’22 semesters. We are proud and inspired by our student athletes who display excellence both in their sport, and in the classroom. We are so proud of the work completed by Ellen Tripp, the director of the Student-Athlete Success Program (SASP), as well as all of the counselors and advisors in this unit for the valuable support and academic counseling they provide to our student-athletes, helping to ensure their academic success.
- 429 students who achieved a 3.00 semester GPA or higher for either Spring 2022 and Fall 2022.
- 73 enrolled student-athletes who earned a term GPA of 4.0 in Spring '22 and/or Fall '22 term.
- 23 enrolled student-athletes who maintain a cumulative GPA of 4.0 through the Fall '22 term
- Currently, sixteen of our teams have achieved a cumulative GPA of 3.00 or higher.
Highlighting Interdisciplinary Scholarship at UConn
The Eversource Energy Center, founded in 2015 at UConn in partnership with the Eversource Energy Company, is a unique research institute whose mission is “to be the foremost energy utility-academia partnership advancing leading-edge interdisciplinary research and technology assuring reliable power during extreme weather and security events.”
In the eight years since it set up shop at the UConn Tech Park’s Innovation Partnership Building, the EEC has been making great strides in the five research areas—or pillars—on which its mission rests: grid resilience in a warming climate, grid reliability in a changing demand environment, renewable energy integration, cyber-physical system security, and workforce training, outreach, and policy. In its annual reports, the Center chronicles its progress in an ever-increasing number and range of research projects in all of these areas. These include advances in storm preparedness, vegetation management, electric grid reinforcement, and renewable energy.
A centerpiece of EEC accomplishment is the development of UConn’s Outage Prediction Model (OPM), which combines weather, vegetation, infrastructural, and historical storm data, among others, to predict storm damage to the electric grid and enable utilities to prepare for its impacts. Recently, the Center entered into partnerships with AVANGRID and Dominion Energy to extend development of the OPM to parts of the United States beyond Eversource’s service area, including New York, Virginia, and North Carolina.
Aside from its research work, the EEC provides substantial support to the UConn community in other ways. Since its inception, the Center has funded 145 students at the graduate and undergraduate levels, 10 postdoctoral researchers, and 49 UConn faculty. Through its new Grid Modernization Certificate Program, it is also preparing early-career engineers for careers in managing an electric grid made ever more complex by the transition away from fossil fuels to clean energy. And, through its pioneering Diversity and Inclusion Initiative, the Center has, to date, funded thirteen underrepresented and minority (URM) students, including support for internships, mentors, and expenses for those who present their research at national conferences and publish their work. The goal is ultimately to have URM students comprise 25 percent of the Center’s funded students.
Recently, Eversource Energy extended its support for the Eversource Energy Center with a commitment of $14 million in new funding. The Center will use these funds to continue and expand its efforts to address the great resilience challenges that confront the energy industry at the intersection of weather extremes, climate change, and clean power infrastructure.
Academic Affairs Spotlight
The Office of the Provost and the units that report in academic affairs are staffed and led by an outstanding group of talented and dedicated colleagues. This month we are spotlighting Dr. Tadarrayl Starke, Associate Vice Provost of the Institute for the Student Success. He also serves as Interim Executive Director for Access and Post-Secondary Success, Director, McNair Scholars Program, and Director, Northeast Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation. Dr. Starke is a native of Jacksonville, Florida. For over 20 years, Dr. Starke has been committed to student success, with an emphasis in serving students traditionally underrepresented in higher education like himself.
What does a typical work week look like for you?
For the most part, my week is filled with committee, staff, and budget meetings. I also add in various UConn Foundation meetings on both the development and corporate philanthropy sides on certain weeks to ensure we keep our needs and activities on the forefront of their awareness and to help add resources to various student success initiatives. Because ISS is such a large division, the meetings are varied in their focus areas and targeted populations. But, many meetings allow for colleagues and myself to discuss ways we can be creative and innovative to move student success forward at UConn. Those meetings have helped move forward a lot of the work in ISS, but also have generated ideas for new programming and services to support our students. It’s always exciting when we get to envision how we can better support our students in reaching their goals.
During certain stretches of the year, I am usually consumed with grant writing to help supplement our programs across the division. Over the last 2 years, I’ve been able to work with some great people at UConn to submit over $45 million in grant proposals. Fingers crossed for some of those awaiting determination.
Like a lot of staff, right now I am also serving in additional capacities within our division. One role is the Interim Director of the Center for Access & Postsecondary Success (CAPS). This provides a great opportunity to work with our university community to promote greater equity in higher education and to imagine and develop steps to expand how we at UConn better serve and support our underrepresented populations across the system.
Finally, my weeks are highlighted when I get to engage with undergraduate students in conversations about their experiences at UConn, or talking with graduate students about their professional pathways, or speaking in a class about my personal journey in and through higher education to help students realize there’s no one defined path to reach your goals.
What is an important project/initiative you’re working on right now?
A major initiative I’m working on is Regional Campus success efforts. Focusing significantly on underrepresented student populations, I’m working with various people across the UConn system, as well as our partners in the UConn Foundation, to build new systems, services, and resources to enhance existing student success efforts and develop new ways of improving student outcomes. Our work seeks to help students tap into programming that can promote retention while also helping them build a sense of community to the campus and to each other. This is another area where being free to imagine what could be is so important, as we have the potential to create a new way of approaching student success and expand how our students on the Regional Campuses experience the various dimensions of UConn.
What are you most looking forward to as the semester begins?
Student engagement. Students give me energy. As someone who comes from a Student Affairs background, I thrive off the energy students bring. It keeps me focused on why we’re all here – them and their needs. Their energy provides the opportunity for us to also listen to their voices in order to develop better ways to serve and support them through the journey to and through UConn. I look forward to great conversations about what we can do to make UConn a place where all of our students feel valued, can pursue their interests, and build lifelong connections with faculty, staff, and other students.
If you could solve one problem right now at UConn, what would it be?
If I could solve one problem right now at UConn, it would be to expand advising staff…not just academic advising staff, but increase the number of staff who provide an advising and/or counseling function to our students. Our academic and non-academic advising staff provide such significant support to move UConn’s student success metrics. Unfortunately, we’ve had to do it in the midst of increasing caseloads, staff departures and retirements, and the increased need of our students to have deeper interpersonal connections. A robust formal and informal advising system shows the strength of an institution in meeting students’ needs. It’s our people who move and drive student success and, if I had the ability to enhance this particular function of the university, there’s no doubt we would reap the benefits in terms of improved metrics and student outcomes, as well as deepening students connections to the campus and inspire their continued support of UConn nation even well after they graduate.
What is your favorite UConn experience so far?
My first UConn Women’s Basketball tournament in Gampel is one of my favorite memories. The energy. The crowd. The excitement. I definitely learned why UConn is the basketball capital of the world. It was also a great change of pace after so long being online and working remotely.
Cultivate
March 2, 2023
9:00 a.m. - 2:30 p.m.
Student Union Ballroom
The Role of Radical Optimism in Changing Higher Education with Dr. Christina Katopodis.
