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Credit: Nick Romanenko
Barry V. Qualls, Interim Vice President
for Undergraduate Education
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Credit: Courtesy Michael Beals
Michael Beals, Director of
Implementation, Chair of the Steering
Committee
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Credit: Nick Romanenko
Cheryl Wall, Vice Chair, Steering
Committee
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Credit: Courtesy Tulane University
Joan W. Bennett, Associate Vice
President for Academic Affairs
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Credit: Courtesy Lea Stewart
Lea Stewart, Chair, Committee on
Nontraditional Students
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Barry V. Qualls
Interim Vice President for Undergraduate Education
The position of vice president for undergraduate education was created in 1990; but the Task Force on Undergraduate Education proposed strengthening the post, providing the vice president with more resources and authority to coordinate academic and student life on all campuses in New Brunswick and Piscataway. President Richard L. McCormick has named Barry V. Qualls the interim vice president for undergraduate education. Qualls chaired the task force, overseeing its 36 members and five working groups.
Qualls, an English professor and dean of humanities in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences-New Brunswick, has served Rutgers since 1971. He has been chair of the English department and director of its graduate program, and is a former chair of the New Brunswick Faculty Council. Qualls specializes in Victorian fiction and poetry, and in the literatures of the Bible.
As outlined in McCormick’s recommendations, Qualls will have primary responsibility for academic matters related to undergraduate education that cut across the schools. He will have oversight of campus deans; undergraduate research; a new campuswide honors program; seminars for first-year students; a scholarship office for students seeking national and international support such as Rhodes, Goldwater and Truman scholarships; and other academic areas affecting undergraduates throughout New Brunswick/Piscataway. Qualls will report to the executive vice president for academic affairs and will be a member of the Cabinet and the Promotion Review Committee.
In conjunction with faculties, campus deans and students, Qualls will coordinate the development of learning communities across the New Brunswick and Piscataway campuses. He will also work to expand programs offering opportunities for student involvement in faculty research, such as the Aresty undergraduate research program, and in community service operated through the CASE programs.
“The work involved for all of us is going to be intense, as we move toward the startup of our new programs in fall 2007,” Qualls said. “There is much wonderful work to build on here, and so many amazing faculty and staff to call on to undertake the transformation process. I’m hopeful that the campuswide work that we all did together in discussing the task force report will continue as we move into implementation.”
Michael Beals
Director of Implementation
Chair, Steering Committee
Cheryl Wall
Vice chair, Steering Committee
McCormick has charged a steering committee with executing the ambitious plan of implementing reforms in undergraduate education. Michael Beals will chair the committee and serve as director of implementation. He has served as dean for educational initiatives in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences-New Brunswick for the past 10 years and has been part of the mathematics faculty since coming to Rutgers in 1981. Beals will continue to serve as dean and professor while he heads the steering committee.
English professor Cheryl Wall will serve as vice chair of the steering committee on implementation. Wall has been on the Rutgers faculty since 1972. She has been the English department chair, and won the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Award for Undergraduate Teaching in 1995. She is co-principal investigator on the Ford Foundation grant “Reaffirming Action: Designs for Diversity in Higher Education.”
The implementation committee will address such areas as organization, admissions and recruitment, student life, campus programming, faculty engagement and learning communities. With many of the reforms scheduled to be in place by fall 2007, the group, Beals and Wall have their work cut out for them.
“We have a huge amount to do. Some of it is immediate,” said Beals, who served as co-chair of the structure working group on the Task Force on Undergraduate Education.
“We have to think about what we present to prospective students. We have to be ready with a great deal of that by June of this year.”
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