To the Campus Community,

As spring semester ends, I would like to thank all of you for your hard work and steadfast dedication to the University, your colleagues, and our students over the past academic year. In my role as Acting Provost, my knowledge and understanding of the variety of talent on our campus continues to grow. Just this week, as President Bodnar and I visited all of UM’s colleges for open forums, I’ve witnessed your inspiring commitment to UM, and heard thoughtful and creative ideas for its future – our future.

The past academic year has been more challenging than any we’ve experienced, and we should all be proud of the way UM rose to these challenges. Last summer’s tremendous efforts – from all corners of campus – to prepare for the academic year were extremely successful. UM successfully delivered a mix of in person and remote instruction while managing student COVID cases without getting overwhelmed. This is the result of careful planning and constant monitoring. This effort has been exhausting, and I know we are all looking forward to the summer months for a break – for many faculty members, summer is a time for scholarship, renewal and re-focus, and for staff and administrators, the break in the academic year routine allows us time to take annual leave, reflect on the past year, and prepare for the year to come.

I’d like to highlight a few bright spots this year and thank everyone who contributed to them:

• The Instructional Planning Group (IPG) formed last spring to help UM instructors prepare for a radically different teaching and learning experience for instructors as well as for students. Representatives from UMOnline, OOLD, IT, the Registrar’s Office, Facilities Services, as well as faculty, staff, and student representatives, have met 2-4 times per month for the past year to develop guidance on instructional modalities, use of classroom space, and conducting experiential learning over the course of the academic year. This integrated approach to supporting instruction is extremely valuable.
• Faculty across campus participated in the Learning Assistant (LA) program this past year. The LA program is part of UM’s broader Teaching Excellence Initiative; undergraduates who have already taken a course serve as Learning Assistants, helping teach the course to a new set of students and supporting active learning. Nationally, this program has been shown to improve student’s understanding, decrease DWF rates, and significantly benefit BIPOC students. I commend participants for their commitment to high-quality instruction and evidence-based teaching practices in using LAs. I encourage all instructors to learn more about this program and consider using LAs in the future.
• As many of you know, this year the Office of the Provost started using several digital platforms to conduct our work. We adopted Submittable across all academic units for the sabbatical application and faculty evaluation processes, Blue for electronic course evaluations, and Coursedog for curriculum proposals. I’m especially proud of the administrative staff in the academic units and deans’ offices who adopted these platforms and supported the faculty using them for the first time. I know there were hiccups along the way, and I thank you all for your patience and understanding as we learn to leverage technology for improved efficiency and collaboration.
• I’d also like to thank all the faculty members and advisors who successfully adopted Navigate and ensured another extremely successful year in terms of student retention, and an outstanding 88% fall to spring retention rate!

During our visits to each college this week, President Bodnar and I have received queries about what will transpire over the summer and into next fall, particularly as related to academic planning. As outlined in previous communications, the process is as follows:

• I will use the Academic Planning Group’s recommendations, and my ongoing work with the deans, to develop the next iteration of recommendations to the President to consider. My sincere thanks to the members of the Academic Planning Group for their hard work at the busiest time of the year!
• I will continue to work with UM’s deans and associate deans on college-level planning and budgeting so that next fall, we can move expeditiously into decisions to meet our goal of ensuring UM is strategically allocating resources to best meet the needs of students.
• I expect that by early fall semester, President Bodnar will share the final plan with the campus community for implementation. Where curricular changes are proposed, they will be submitted to the Faculty Senate for campus review prior to Board of Regents review. Information will be posted online and featured in UMToday as it becomes available, so I encourage you to read UMToday and visit the Academic Planning webpage regularly over the coming months.

Our academic planning efforts are informed by the data we have on historical enrollment, the current higher education landscape, our mission as an institution, and an ongoing assessment of the 2021 enrollment data combined with the ever-changing fiscal picture. UM’s future depends on the action we take now – to ensure our curricular offerings evolve and that student recruitment and retention keep growing.

As always, I welcome your feedback, comments, and suggestions. Please feel free to drop me a line at officeoftheprovost@umontana.edu or visit with me during office hours.

All the best!

Reed Humphrey, Acting Provost and VP for Academic Affairs