From the Desk of the Provost

Every person who crosses the stage has a story to tell of how they got there. Inevitably, some stories bubble up to the surface and attract a little extra attention.

This weekend, as UTSA graduated more than 3,000 students, I was delighted to read this San Antonio Express-New article about College of Business graduate Mario Telles. Mario, 34, is one of our nontraditional students. In his case, he decided to pursue higher education after being laid off from a comfortable job. In my mind, that alone makes his story one worth sharing.

But Mario further distinguished himself by being one of only 12 graduating seniors in the U.S. to be offered a job with the FDIC. What an achievement!

However, it’s worth noting Mario is typical of UTSA graduates in one significant aspect: he was a transfer student. We know that more than half (51 percent in 2010-2011) of UTSA’s graduates began their higher education at another institution; in Mario’s case, he began his college career at SAC.

Although the university plays an important role in the success of these students, they do not contribute to our four- and six-year graduation rates, which only track students who start at UTSA as freshmen. As a consequence, most of the successful student outcomes produced at UTSA are not captured by this metric.

The week prior to this month’s commencement exercises, we put the finishing touches on the university’s Graduation Rate Improvement Plan (yes, we call it the GRIP), which details a multi-pronged approach aimed at improving UTSA’s four-year graduation rate, currently at 9.6 percent. The drafting of the plan has been two months in the works, and when we come back from the holiday break in January the GRIP team will begin assessing how to implement the plan. Stay tuned.

In the meantime, there are 3,000 success stories to be celebrated.

I’ve held faculty forums for each of the colleges this fall, and at each one, I’ve ended my presentation with the image you see above. It is without a doubt my favorite photograph of the university.

Anyone who has attended a UTSA commencement will recognize this as the recessional. The first time I attended one of our commencement ceremonies, in May 2008, I was caught completely by surprise when the mariachis came out and started playing. Mariachi music simply is not typical at college commencement ceremonies elsewhere, but I quickly came to see it as quintessential to the UTSA experience. Frankly, most commencement recessionals sound like a funeral; ours, on the other hand, sounds like the wonderful celebration it is and should be. And we send our freshly minted graduates and their families off into the world with a bounce in their step.

I used this as the closer of my campus presentations to remind us all of why we are here: we have chosen this vocation to help our students reach this moment. Absolutely everything we do contributes to what is happening in this photo, whether it be helping students with their administrative needs, exposing them to new perspectives in our classes, engaging them in co-curricular experiences, sharing the delight of discovery through independent research projects, or counseling them about their future careers.

If we all do our job right, we can have a significant impact on the lives of our students and their families.

Congratulations to all the December 2011 graduates, and to all of you who contributed so substantially to their success.

For some time, I’ve been thinking about the processes we have in place to help our faculty make transitions in their academic careers —specifically, how we orient new faculty when they join the university, how we manage the evolutionary stages of a faculty member’s career, and how we assist faculty when they are ready to leave the university. I would like to consider the last of these transitions here, with more on the former two at a later date, perhaps.

In the past couple of weeks, we’ve launched two significant initiatives that I believe will go a long way toward easing the transition of working faculty member to retired faculty member. First, we held the inaugural reception for the Retired Faculty Association, a group that already has provided opportunities for some long-retired faculty to reconnect with the university. More recently, we announced the Voluntary Separation Incentive Program, which might provide an extra benefit for faculty who may have been considering retirement.

I’m a few years away myself (and not very close to the Rule of 80 just yet), but I understand that the decision to retire is not a simple one. I know that’s especially true for a scholar. As is the case in many professions, being a professor is not an 8-to-5 job, and much of our self-identity is deeply associated with our work. That self-identification is very difficult to let go — at any age and for any price.

So I do not expect all of the some 120 tenured faculty who are eligible for the VSIP to participate in the program. But I do believe that we will see a greater number of retirements in 2012 than we normally do in a given year, and I am pleased to be able to offer that incentive to some of our long-serving faculty.

I’m even more pleased that, with the establishment of the RFA, we now have a formal mechanism for those faculty who do choose to separate from employment with the university to maintain ties to UTSA.

I have occasionally thought about how I would approach this transition when the time comes for me, and I am sure that I would want to maintain my connection to the university and continue to participate in its development and success, if only in a supportive capacity. I am excited about the creation of the RFA and believe that it will make a huge difference, both in the lives of our retired colleagues and in the continued well-being of the university.

I know Sept. 3, 2011, will be remembered as a historic day for UTSA (for reasons I don’t think I need to explain). But I believe Sept. 1, 2011, will turn out to be a pretty important day for our faculty, too.

On Thursday, Professor Emerita Marian Martinello put the final signature on a memorandum of understanding that formally establishes the UTSA Retired Faculty Association. This is an effort that has been in the works since January, when we first convened a lunch meeting of retired and not-yet-retired faculty to discuss the idea. As is sometimes the case when you’re doing something new, the process for creating a campus organization that consists solely of people who no longer work here did not have a clear path. It took the combined efforts of staff in Advancement and Business Affairs as well as Academic Affairs to make this happen. I do want to give special thanks to Laura Murray in Advancement Services for shepherding the MOU draft through various iterations and the signature processes and also for her invaluable knowledge of nonprofits.

Now that they are official, the RFA members have an ambitious agenda. But first, we celebrate. Save the afternoon of Sept. 28 on your calendar for a reception honoring the group, and we’ll be sending out more details on that event very soon.