Chancellor’s Installation
Welcome to Faculty
Dear UNCG Faculty,
I write to encourage you to participate in Chancellor Brady’s formal installation on Tuesday, May 5. As a member of the Chancellor’s Search Committee last spring, I was thrilled when President Erskine Bowles appointed one of us to serve as our chief executive officer. What do I mean by saying she is “one of us?” Not only is Chancellor Brady an accomplished scholar, as her political science students will have an opportunity to discover next fall, she is a committed teacher. Furthermore, her meetings with the University Promotions & Tenure Committee this year were not just formalities. She led us in a serious discussion of the cases, making it clear that she had read them all carefully and had considered the evidence professionally and compassionately. She has repeatedly expressed concerns to Faculty Senate leadership regarding the mentoring of junior faculty, the support provided to midcareer faculty, and the transparency of the promotion and tenure process. On many campuses administrators are using the current financial climate and the pressure for rapid decision-making as excuses to exclude faculty and staff from important discussions. On our campus, Chancellor Brady’s approach has been the opposite: she has demonstrated a strong commitment to shared governance, including Faculty and Staff Senate leadership and committees in discussions about UNCG’s future even when it would have been easier for her to make top-down decisions. She also is exploring ways to expedite communication between the administration and individual members of our community. Since her arrival in August, it has thus become even clearer to me than it was during the search process that Chancellor Brady is a faculty leader, not merely a leader of the faculty.
The installation will be a wonderful event, steeped in UNCG history and traditions but also foreshadowing our future as an inclusive community. It will, for example, be the first time Faculty and Staff Senates have marched side-by-side. Chancellor Brady’s enthusiasm for UNCG and all we do is contagious, so I know this will be a joyous event. Please join the celebration of her formal installation by marching in the procession wearing full academic regalia!
Rebecca Adams
Chair of Faculty Senate