Provost Division Year in Review

Academic Year 2023 - 2024

Over the past academic year, the Provost Division advanced its work on wide-ranging initiatives to enhance the academic environment. Through these strategic efforts in collaboration with partners across the university, the division continued to drive forward the academic mission of the university. We are proud to present an overview of achievements that demonstrate our commitment to CMU’s mission through our contributions grounded in innovation, efficiency, equity and collaboration.

• Launched the CMU Rales Fellows Program, welcoming 22 students from underrepresented or under-resourced backgrounds in 17 STEM programs to the inaugural cohort in fall 2024.
• Continued the success of the Tartan Scholars program, celebrating the graduation of its second cohort in May 2024. To date, the program has served 606 students with a 99% first-year retention rate. Seventy eight students were selected for this year’s cohort in the Class of 2028+.
• Built on continued initiatives to enhance holistic graduate student support by establishing an increased minimum doctoral stipend, expanding the Student Parental Accomodation period and supporting the launch of the Graduate Student Assembly Family Space Pilot Program.

• Supported the newly launched Deeper Conversations series, offering opportunities for the CMU community to study and explore some of society’s most complex issues, through a slate of dialogues, including an Anti-Hate Series.
• Prioritized guidelines and policies, including the establishment of the Campus Climate and Bias Reporting Protocol (CCBRP) for reporting and resolving alleged bias incidents, and the formation of a steering committee to respond to new Title IX regulations, including policy changes and mandatory training.
• Developed and centralized resources, including the refreshed Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging (DEIB) website as a comprehensive resource hub, and Heritage Month assets (restricted access) to celebrate diverse cultural events.

• Hosted signature university-wide events, including the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Keynote with Emmy award-winning journalist Byron Pitts, Pride Keynote with Rabbi Sandra Lawson, Juneteenth Keynote with CMU’s own Dr. Edda Fields-Black, and Heading to the Point: Exploring the Black Urban Experience in Pittsburgh with Dr. Wanda Heading-Grant and Dr. Joe William Trotter, Jr. 

"Facilitating civil discourse and modeling its power to unify, educate and build bridges is precisely the role that higher education can and should play in a society increasingly marked by division."  
— CMU President Farnam Jahanian

• As part of the Core Competencies Initiative, evolved Computing@CMU into Core@CMU, a university-wide undergraduate course requirement introducing Core4 skills.
• Launched seven online graduate certificate programs focused on AI, 3D bioprinting and computational data science.
• Initiated the Generative Artificial Intelligence Teaching as Research (GAITAR) Initiative, funding 27 AI-based teaching innovation projects for instructors to implement and study AI-based teaching innovations in their courses.

• Enhanced the Early Course Feedback (ECF) program, supporting 106 instructors across 137 courses in AY23-24.

• Redesigned Incoming Faculty Orientation into a year-long curriculum with monthly sessions.
• Developed a year-long leadership program for academic department heads and associate deans.
• Continued scholarship support for faculty participation in the Faculty Success Program with the National Center for Faculty Diversity and Development (NCFDD).
• Implemented a new Emeritus Faculty Policy to better define engagement, rights, and privileges, as well as a new approval workflow to support the Policy.
• Improved Reappointment Promotion and Tenure (RPT) and Faculty Leaves processes by creating standard operating procedures and transitioning to modernized platforms.
• Initiated a comprehensive discovery process to improve faculty data management by creating process maps for each college, resulting in 10 distinct process maps representing faculty appointment workflows, identifying improvement opportunities and pain points.
• Reviewed policies and practices to provide guidance grounded in equity, including updates to faculty hiring guidance.

“One of the things that I love most about this institution is the bridges that we build across campus and with each other. It’s one of the best parts of being a faculty member here.” — Shelley Anna, Vice Provost for Faculty

• Developed International Education Arrangement Guidelines [pdf] for CMU faculty and staff initiating educational partnerships outside of the U.S.
• Formalized the Artists and Scholars at Risk (ASaR) program by establishing operational processes and establishing community partnerships. The program welcomed at-risk scholars in the arts and humanities and hosted an Egyptian scholar as a research scholar and fellow in residence.
• Spearheaded the BPPE Efficiency Project for CMU's California-based graduate programs to create secure, standardized, automated and auditable processes for student outreach, form collection and centralized document storage.

• Expanded and enhanced enrollment management efforts to connect with international counselors to foster a diverse international student population.

• To build CMU’s data culture and community of practices, organized CMU’s annual Data Analytics Day and Iron Viz Challenge, attracting 220 attendees across the CMU data community (a 33% increase from 2023). 
• Implemented the Graduate Admission Data (GRAAD) project to integrate data from disparate sources to generate decision insights for improved graduate enrollment management decision-making. This addresses legacy data sharing issues related to graduate student application and admission decision process.
• Launched the Registrar Innovation Project to advance standardization and automation, reduce administrative burden on advisors and administrators and increase time dedicated to advising.
• In collaboration with partners across the university, continued to centralize data access and insights through the development of a centralized Snowflake Data Lake, College Profile dashboard, as well as other managerial dashboards in the Data Analytics Sharing Hub (DASH).
• Leveraged CMU’s centralized data resources and used cutting-edge AI-assisted modeling algorithms via Amazon Cloud Services, developed new predictive models to support student success initiatives, replacing the Othot platform.
• Conducted analysis to inform university decision regarding the undergraduate admission standardized test policy, leading to a set of policy recommendations announced in August 2024.
• Developed comprehensive and robust data dashboards to share university-wide assessment efforts to ensure university leaders have easy and timely access to assessment data.
• Undertook a comprehensive overhaul of the admission review process, transitioning from S3 to Slate for application handling and decision management. To support this transition, the team is conducting workshops to share current admission application review practices and exploring best practices with graduate admission units.
• Provided thought leadership nationally among institutional research and analytics professionals through several highly visible presentations at national conferences, including a 90-minute impact session on CMU’s data strategy and implementation of the centralized data resources. This impact session was the most attended session of the conference.