First candidate for vice provost of Undergraduate Studies to appear Wednesday

LAWRENCE — DeAngela Burns-Wallace, assistant vice provost for Undergraduate Studies at the University of Missouri, will make a public presentation Wednesday, Sept. 30, as a candidate for vice provost of Undergraduate Studies at the University of Kansas.

Burns-Wallace is the first of three candidates for the position who will make public presentations during their respective campus visits. Her talk will be from 4 p.m. to 4:45 p.m. Wednesday in the Big 12 Room of the Kansas Union.

In her present role at MU, Burns-Wallace is responsible for a comprehensive student success plan that addresses all student populations and involves all academic divisions and the offices of enrollment management and student affairs. During the 2013-14 academic year, she was placed at KU as an American Council on Education Emerging Leaders Fellow. The program allowed her to work directly with KU’s senior leadership as well as take part in 30 site visits at institutions and education agencies across the country. Prior to her fellowship, she worked about five years as assistant vice provost for enrollment management at MU and another five years as assistant dean of undergraduate admissions at Stanford University. Before focusing on higher education, Burns-Wallace held a number of positions in the U.S. Department of State. Burns-Wallace holds a doctorate in higher education management from the University of Pennsylvania.

The vice provost search committee, led by Tom Volek, associate professor and associate dean of journalism and mass communications, invites students, faculty and staff to attend all candidate presentations and provide feedback of their impressions. Each candidate will prepare a presentation on the topic: What are the three biggest challenges to student academic success that public research universities face? How do you propose to engage academic units and academic support services in efforts to improve graduation rates? The university will release information about each candidate roughly 48 hours before his or her talk. Additional candidates are scheduled to appear:

• Candidate 2 presentation: 4-4:45 p.m. Monday, Oct. 5, Kansas Room, Kansas Union
• Candidate 3 presentation: 4-4:45 p.m. Oct. 7, Malott Room, Kansas Union

Candidate presentations will be recorded and available for viewing online after the final candidate has appeared on campus. Evaluations of all candidates are due by noon Oct. 13.

The vice provost of Undergraduate Studies has primary focus on undergraduate education at the Lawrence and Edwards campuses. The vice provost has responsibility for retention and progression to graduation for undergraduate students and works with the leadership in Undergraduate Studies to implement retention efforts in collaboration with stakeholders across the campus. The vice provost works with the University Core Curriculum Committee to set the agenda and to ensure processes are developed for managing the KU Core, and provides leadership for several offices on campus including experiential learning, First-Year Experience, the Center for Undergraduate Research and the academic support services, including the Undergraduate Advising Center, the Academic Achievement and Access Center, the KU Writing Center, the University Career Center, and KU Info.