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  4. Associate Provost's Message

Associate Provost's Message

Dear colleagues,

I hope your summer has been all that you wanted it to be whether it’s all work, all play or a combination of both. For those of you who have been away, welcome back. For those if you who stuck around, I hope you took more than a few walks around our beautiful campus. I am grateful for this space to share about some new opportunities for you to engage with each other in the coming weeks.

First, please welcome our new colleagues to the Pirate crew:

  • Molly Codd-Gaskell, Lecturer, Occupational Therapy
  • Joelle Czirr, Instructor, Psychology
  • Jonathan Dawson, Assistant Professor, Engineering & Physics
  • Benny Fountain, Associate Professor, Art & Design
  • Chris Hansen, Lecturer, Theatre
  • Carrie Killinger, Lecturer, Marriage & Family Therapy
  • Bonnie Kirkpatrick, Assistant Professor/Academic Fieldwork Coordinator, Occupational Therapy
  • Donna Mann, Associate Professor/Doctoral Capstone Coordinator, Occupational Therapy
  • Peter Moe, Associate Professor, English
  • Priscila Navarro, Assistant Professor/Director of Keyboard Studies, Music
  • Bornell Nicholson, Assistant Professor, Marriage & Family Therapy

It has been wonderful to communicate with our new academic hires since late July. I will get to meet them in person during four days of new faculty orientation activities at the end of August. Our orientation includes a full Whitworth experience: lunch at the HUB, a tour of a residence hall, instructions for sports passes, and tacos with Scott and Janice.

New faculty need mentors! Many of you have served as mentors to our new faculty members in the past, providing generous support for their successful transition to the Whitworth community. Again, this academic year, we will compensate mentors for their time and energy. If you have served as a mentor in the past or indicated that you were interested again, I’ll be reaching out to you.

I plan to hold a peer teaching evaluator training on Tuesday, Sept. 5, at 1 p.m. If you are well versed in our peer teaching evaluation protocol, no need to attend. If you have not been trained before or need a refresher, please plan on attending and watch for the Zoom link in the weekly Academic Affairs Digest. 

And last but not least, on Saturday, Sept. 2, at 4 p.m., our new cohort of students and their families will gather in The Loop for the Crossover Ceremony. The president welcomes our new students to the Whitworth family, we sing Amazing Grace, and then they all walk through a big arch that is covered in pinecones. You are welcome and invited to be there at the beginning of their time here! You can find this event, as well as other opening events, on the Opening Events Calendar.

Enjoy your summer. See you soon.

Stacy