Office of the Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs

The Office of the Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs invites members of the Texas A&M community to nominate outstanding staff members in the Division of Academic Affairs for the 2012 Tradition of Excellence Staff Awards.  Eligibility guidelines, a list of the units and offices within the Division of Academic Affairs, nomination forms, and a list of previous recipients are available at 

http://provost.tamu.edu/special-events/tradition-of-excellence-awards

Completed nomination packets must be submitted to my office no later than 5:00 p.m., Tuesday, February 21, 2012.  Questions may be directed in advance to Ms. Nancy Sawtelle at n-sawtelle@tamu.edu or by telephone at 845-4016.

The awards will be presented at the Academic Affairs Awards Ceremony, beginning at 3:00 p.m. on Tuesday, April 24, 2012, in the Clayton Williams Alumni Center.   We are grateful to The Association of Former Students for their continued support of the Tradition of Excellence Staff Awards.

Provost Karan Watson cordially invites you to the Provost’s continuing Commitment to Excellence Dialogues.  The next Dialogue will focus specifically on our Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP), “Aggies Commit to Learning for a Lifetime.” 

Our QEP, required for reaccreditation, is a 10-year initiative on student learning. We believe that our QEP can help distinguish Texas A&M as a top tier University, not just a large producer of graduates, but only with the full engagement of faculty and students. The Provost’s Dialogue offers the chance to provide feedback and ask questions about TAMU’s QEP.  The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) places a premium on faculty leadership in the educational mission of the institution.

On April 2-5, 2012, our peer review team from SACS will be on campus as part of our bid for reaffirmation of accreditation. Our success depends on your engagement.  Please join us for the Dialogue on QEP.  Meanwhile, you are invited to provide feedback to the QEP Committee on the draft QEP report at http://provost.tamu.edu/initiatives/quality-enhancement-plan. You also can find more information on QEP and SACS from the “2012 Accreditation” tab on the Provost’s home page.

Please RSVP to Vivian Gonzales at v-gonzales@tamu.edu so that we can schedule an appropriately sized room.  We look forward to seeing you.

Join us in welcoming Dr. M. Katherine Banks, who has begun her tenure as vice chancellor for engineering for The Texas A&M University System and dean of the Dwight Look College of Engineering at Texas A&M. She came to us from Purdue University and is a graduate of the University of Florida, the University of North Carolina and Duke University.

Dialogues to accelerate our pursuit of Vision 2020

David H. Carlson, currently professor and dean of library affairs for the Morris Library at Southern Illinois University Carbondale (SIUC) in Carbondale, Illinois, has been named dean of University libraries at Texas A&M University.  Mr. Carlson’s appointment, effective July 1, 2012, was confirmed by The Texas A&M University System Board of Regents during a telephonic board meeting held earlier today.   He was selected after an extensive search that included both national and international applicants.

Mr. Carlson has served as professor and dean of library affairs at Southern Illinois since 2001.  During that time he has been responsible for overall administration and operations of the Morris Library, including library support services, information services, special collections, library advancement and development.  He supervised 31 tenure/tenure track faculty and a cadre of professional, civil servant and student employees. Like the Texas A&M University Libraries, the SIUC library is a member of the prestigious Association of Research Libraries. The SIUC and A&M libraries also share membership in the Greater Western Library Alliance.

He holds the rank of professor in library affairs and has published numerous publications related to library management, information network security, library automation and library and vendor relations.  He is also been a national leader in the promotion of open access policies in libraries and scholarly communication.

Mr. Carlson received his Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Connecticut, a Master of Library Science from the University of Michigan and a Master of Computer Science Education from The University of Evansville. He will be considered for tenure on arrival by the university tenure review process.

Mr. Charles Gilreath will continue to serve as interim dean of university libraries until Carlson’s arrival in July.