Over the past couple of years, Stevens has gone through large shifts in its faculty composition and academic leadership, but those of last year truly highlight these changes and their potential for creating a new academic culture.
Earlier in January, two big promotions were announced. First, Dr. Constantin Chassapis was promoted to Senior Vice President for Graduate Education. In this capacity, he will continue the strides he has made in Graduate Education, represent the Provost when required, and work closely with other high-level academic officials. Second, Dr. Anthony Barrese was promoted to Dean for Undergraduate Education. Now, he will report directly to Dr. David Zeng, Vice Provost for Academic Innovation and Faculty Affairs, and lead the Office of Undergraduate Academics while continuing to serve as a Teaching Professor in the School of Systems and Enterprises.
These two promotions follow a string of notable changes in the academic composition of Stevens since last summer. Back in June, it was announced that Dr. Xiangwu (David) Zeng would be filling the newly created post of Vice Provost for Academic Innovation and Faculty Affairs. According to Provost Christophe Pierre, “he will advise the academic leadership on a wide range of issues related to undergraduate education and curriculum matters, academic advising, teaching and learning best practices, and faculty affairs.”
Considering this newly created position, Pierre also noted that, “Dr. Zeng’s position brings together responsibilities for the undergraduate academic experience and faculty affairs and recognizes how closely these areas are connected”.
Since joining Stevens, Vice Provost Zeng now oversees a large portfolio of offices including Undergraduate Academics, the Academic Support Center, International Programs, Clark Scholars, Pinnacle Scholars, the Library, and the Center for Faculty Engagement and Advancement.
Along with this, the Office of the Registrar now reports to Associate Provost Cindy Chin.
In addition to these changes, it was also announced in June that Dr. Dilhan Kalyon would succeed Dr. Mo Dehghani as Interim Vice President for Research, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship.
Outside of administrative appointments, the faculty composition has changed significantly since last summer. Back in August, two dozen new additions to the faculty were announced—fourteen in the School of Engineering and Science, five in the School of Business, three in the School of Systems and Enterprises, and two in the College of Arts and Letters.
In total, this was one full professor, four associate professors, and nineteen assistant professors. Notably, these new hires were comprised of sixteen men and eight women, which means that Stevens did meet its strategic goal of having at least 30% of all new full-time faculty hires as female.
As of Fall 2019, women comprise 26% of total full-time faculty, which meets another of Stevens’ strategic targets. Pierre noted that “while there is still more room to be done, we are proud of our accomplishments so far.”
Since the two dozen new additions were announced in August, one new faculty member has joined in January—Xueqing (Susan) Liu, Assistant Professor of Computer Science.
Moreover, entirely new academic programs were announced for the 2019-2020 academic year. At the undergraduate level, a concentration in Optical Engineering was rolled out, but most of the new programs occurred at the graduate level. For graduate degrees, Stevens now offers a Masters of Engineering in Robotics and Masters of Science in Actuarial Mathematics and Quantitative Risk. For graduate certificates, we now confer ones in Applied Business Analytics, Operational Excellence, and Computational Social Science.
The academic structure underlying all these changes has gone through revisions of its own. Pierre commented that “Graduate Education is one of our important focuses at Stevens,” and went on to describe the various changes that have been made in this department.
Back in 2018, the Office of Graduate Education was created to improve the overall graduate student experience. Since then, the Graduate Academics unit was expanded and renamed Graduate Academics and Student Success. This office was tasked with “ensuring that graduate students are academically challenged, supported, and successful from enrollment through graduation,” according to Pierre.
As a result of this change, the Accelerated Masters Program, which offers a pathway for undergraduate students in their final semesters to continue at Stevens at the graduate level, is now overseen by Graduate Academics and Student Success, having previously been overseen by Undergraduate Academics. Both offices still work closely together to ensure students are advised appropriately.
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