You Contribute to Student Success Every Day - March 9, 2023

Dear Faculty, Staff, and Graduate Assistants,

When I look back and reflect on our most recent town hall on student success, I am reminded that student success is integrated in everything we do, and we ALL contribute to the success of our students. We all have an important role to play in fulfilling our land-grant mission.  Everything we do helps our university operate, from academics to facilities to communications. 

Our students drive economic development, spur innovation, and expand our research opportunities - as undergraduates, upon graduation and as they enter the workforce or continue their studies as graduate students.  Those graduate students work on cutting-edge innovations, help educate the next generation of undergraduates, and enrich our campus community.  Student success can only be accomplished because of our combined effort and action.

The university and the provost’s office must also support you and provide resources to support teaching, further research, and other educational endeavors for faculty, staff, and graduate students.  My office works with many units on campus to provide this support such as the Office for Faculty Affairs, Teaching and Faculty Support Center, TIPS, UARK Leaders, the Office of Graduate Student Support, and High Impact Practices (HIPS).

Student Success is one of the main pillars of the university’s 150 Forward strategic planning process.  To be successful in developing our strategic plan and advancing our three pillars of student success, research excellence and becoming an employer of choice, we need your input.

Our first two town hall discussions, covering research excellence and student success, generated great suggestions from our faculty, staff and students.  We have another town hall discussion on March 17, which will focus on becoming an employer of choice.  We also have additional activities planned to gain more feedback from the campus community.

As we look ahead to strengthening our position as an employer of choice, we are in the process of revising policies for staff and faculty, strengthening faculty support and development programming, performing a job compensation and class analysis for staff positions, and studying salaries compared to our peers and the surrounding region for staff, faculty, and graduate assistants.

As we embark on the second half of the semester, I want you to know that the Office of the Provost supports you in your role of advancing student success and enhancing our research excellence.  I want to continue to get your valuable feedback on how we can help and will hold events throughout the spring and fall to engage with you, including a coffee on March 29.

Thank you for everything you do. Your contributions to our institution are immeasurable, and you are changing the world one student at a time.

Best regards,

Terry Martin, Ph.D.
Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs
Professor of Electrical Engineering