Provost Announcement: Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs

I am writing to inform you that Dr. Renée Taylor has informed me of her intention to resign as the Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs (VPFA) to return to the faculty, effective May 16.

Dr. Taylor was an ardent supporter of faculty governance and work-life quality. She brought together numerous faculty committees to design, augment, and implement a number of key policies and programs to advance the professional development and promotion of faculty members. She created or was involved in many initiatives including faculty search and unconscious bias training; college-based faculty mentoring programs; new faculty orientation and faculty promotion and tenure workshops; the mid-career writing program for associate professors; new programming for emeriti faculty; an orientation and support program for new deans, heads, and chairs; and the faculty-administrator leadership program (FALP). Dr. Taylor oversaw the creation and implementation of the “TLC” (Center for the Advancement of Teaching-Learning Communities) and she greatly improved many UIC systems involving faculty, and was responsible for the creation of online processes for faculty offers and student evaluations of teaching. She collaborated with the Office of Diversity to champion and give voice to faculty diversity via the Diversity Advisory Committee, the cluster hiring program, and the underrepresented faculty recruitment program.

While serving as VPFA, Dr. Taylor remained an active researcher, continuing to publish and give invited lectures around the world. She will return to her full-time faculty position in the College of Applied Health Sciences as Professor of Occupational Therapy and Director of the UIC Model of Human Occupation (MOHO) Clearinghouse, an international hub of research, scholarship, and cross-disciplinary collaboration involving the most evidence-based and widely cited conceptual practice model in the field of occupational therapy.

Renée did an outstanding job as Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs. On a personal note, I greatly enjoyed working with her and relied almost daily on her guidance, knowledge, patience, and good humor. Please join me in thanking Renée for her service as the Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs and wishing her well in this next stage of her career.

We will initiate an internal search for Dr. Taylor’s replacement next week.

Sincerely,

Susan Poser
Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs