April 21, 2023
Summary
It has been an exciting week for the Acting Dean (who will soon no longer need to act, though all the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players). My first act is to announce that in future, Friday messages will be broken out into “Business” and “Non-business” sections, separated cunningly by a line. If you don’t want to read my random musings and attempts at humor, stop reading at the line. I will endeavor to keep what’s above the line as brief as possible. As brief as possible does not mean brief, unfortunately.
Full Description
Dear all,
It has been an exciting week for the Acting Dean (who will soon no longer need to act, though all the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players). My first act is to announce that in future, Friday messages will be broken out into “Business” and “Non-business” sections, separated cunningly by a line. If you don’t want to read my random musings and attempts at humor, stop reading at the line. I will endeavor to keep what’s above the line as brief as possible. As brief as possible does not mean brief, unfortunately.
Business
Thank you First, thank you to everyone who wrote me kind messages of congratulation when my new position was announced. I will endeavor to live up to the confidence that many of you have in me. In a future message and at the next FAS meeting, I’ll outline some of the ideas I have for items we can work on together going forward. We will definitely be working on a strategic vision for A&S starting in the fall.
Vice-Dean for Arts, Humanities & Interdisciplinary Studies I am very grateful to Janice Zeman for agreeing to stay on as Vice-Dean until the beginning of the spring semester 2024. Having her in that role in the fall will bring continuity and also allow us to conduct a search for a new Vice-Dean during the semester, rather than trying to do it now when the semester will shortly end and faculty will start to disperse and focus on their research over the summer.
One Tribe One Day A&S had a very successful One Tribe One Day on Tuesday, including a matching challenge of more than $80k from the Council of A&S. The number of donors to A&S was up by 400 from last year, a huge increase. We’ll have more precise numbers and dollar amounts for you soon. Thank you for everything you did to make the day a smashing success.
Social gatherings, also known as parties The last Faculty of Arts & Sciences meeting of the semester is on Tuesday, May 2nd at 3:30. At the end of the meeting (around 5), please join me and the rest of the A&S team for an end of year party in and around Ewell. You will receive a fancy invitation (not too fancy, but fancier than this) soon. There will be drinking, eating and perhaps there will even be music. No need to RSVP – just come.
More social gatherings, also known as parties from Associate Provost for Faculty Affairs, Pam Eddy: The Office of the Provost will host a Faculty appreciation reception on Thursday, May 4th from 3:00-5:00 pm on the front patio of Swem Library. Please join Provost Agouris and Associate Provost Pamela Eddy as they say thank you for a wonderful academic year. There will be heavy hors d’oeuvres, drinks, and a make your own sundae bar. RSVP here.
Salaries, tuition and W&M budget for FY24 Many of you no doubt know that the General Assembly has not yet adopted a budget for next year. However, all three budgets – Senate, House and Governor – include an average 7% salary raise for state employees. In other good news, the Board of Visitors voted this morning to raise tuition by around 5%, with additional increases in non-E&G fees. Even with this additional revenue, however, W&M faces a budget shortfall for FY24 of between 9 and 10 million dollars. It is not going to be a year in which we have much financial flexibility.
Teaching faculty framework University Counsel has now approved the framework with some tiny tweaks that have no significant impact. We are working on those tweaks and once we hear back from HR – which I hope will be very soon – we’ll be sending out placement notifications. Thank you again for all your patience with this long-drawn-out process. We’re almost there.
Steering committee for the Computing, Data and Applied Sciences Initiative Thank you to everyone who has taken time to share their thoughts, give us feedback and help us figure out some good paths forward. Our second survey is now live. In this survey, we ask for your opinion of various possible models. It will also be sent out to all faculty and staff by the Provost’s Office very soon. We ask you to please complete it by midnight on May 4th. The steering committee has begun work on the final report, which will be submitted to the Provost by May 31st and shared with the community shortly thereafter. We will then provide an opportunity for you all to give feedback on the report to myself and David Yalof, co-chairs of the CDSAS steering committee, which we will share with the Provost. Early in the fall semester, she will share her thoughts on the best way forward and then work with Faculty Assembly on implementation.
Best wishes and happy weekend. This is my last act as the Acting Dean.
Suzanne
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Now, for the non-business part. I announced last week that this week’s theme would be fish. As soon as I finish writing this message, I am going to go shad-fishing. Shad are bony, beautiful fish that travel every April through Fredericksburg by means of the Rappahannock River back to their birthplace and spawning ground. Some fish are funny-looking, but shad are not funny-looking at all, unless fish are on principle funny-looking (where are their legs? why don’t they have hair? etc). Shad-fishing is a feast of the senses: the water flows round your waders with some force, satisfying the needs of the sense of touch. (You can also gently touch the fish when you lift them from the water, before putting them back – of course). You are immersed visually in a symphony of color and sound: the sky, the water and its movement, the birds if you’re there at sunrise). The water has a sweet smell – the smell of spring and of freshness. And surely there must be something for the tastebuds, but I haven’t yet thought of what it might be (oh, beer, of course). Fish take us into a world of the imagination, living as they do in a world beyond our understanding. As Virginia Woolf wrote, “Under the thick plate of green water, glazed in their self-centred world, fish swam—gold, splashed with white, streaked with black or silver. Silently they manoeuvred in their water world, poised in the blue patch made by the sky, or shot silently to the edge where the grass, trembling, made a fringe of nodding shadow” (Between the Acts, 1941). Their faces have a sad innocence that seems to come from that “self-centred world” – almost as beautiful as spring itself.
And for the moment of Zen, here’s a shad (and that is NOT my hand). Happy weekend, everyone.
Suzanne, still acting
Suzanne Raitt
Acting Dean of the Faculty of Arts & Sciences
Chancellor Professor of English
Pronouns: she/her/hers
