2030 Leadership Announcements

May 25, 2021 Communications, Email Updates, On Campus

Dear Faculty and Staff,

I am delighted to announce these leadership appointments for the 2030 Action Team.

Vice Provost Dev Venugopalan and Director of the Archaeological Research Laboratory Center in the College of Letters and Science Jennifer Haas will serve as co-designees to me for the initiative.

Associate Dean of Students Becky Freer and Associate Professor and Chair of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering Wilkistar Otieno will serve as special assistants to me and Interim Chief Diversity Officer Chia Vang for Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) for DEI issues in the initiative.

These four appointees have a wealth of experience in accreditation, curriculum, DEI, human resources, policies and procedures, research, shared governance, student services, and other areas related to university initiatives and operations. Their combination of experience and skills will be ideal to advance, coordinate and oversee the progress of the 2030 Action Team. Given the importance of 2030 to our campus and future, all four leaders will serve as members of the Chancellor’s Cabinet.

The 2030 initiative addresses the following eight priorities, most of which already have work teams underway.

  • Be Student-Centric via the Moon Shot for Equity Initiative
  • Revise Curriculum
  • Increase Diversity & Inclusion
  • Align and Engage Workforce
  • Reassess Unit Alignment
  • Refocus Research Infrastructure
  • Update the Budget Model
  • Grow Endowment

The co-designees will coordinate, oversee, and communicate the actions and progress of the eight 2030 initiatives. The special assistants will oversee and coordinate DEI issues which impact all eight priorities. First steps for the four leaders will be to assess the status of each initiative, prioritize and sequence the future actions for the eight initiatives and launch our revised web site which will include a dashboard to monitor our goals. Please look for communication and updates on the 2030 Action Team throughout the summer.

Congratulations to Becky, Dev, Jennifer and Wilkistar on their new appointments.

Best regards,

Mark A. Mone, PhD
Chancellor