Heather White, a professor in the Department of Animal and Dairy Sciences, assumed the role of associate dean for faculty affairs on Aug. 1. She now oversees faculty personnel issues including hiring, promotion, tenure, post-tenure activities, compensation, retention, and the faculty annual performance evaluation process. The new faculty-focused associate dean position was created through a leadership reorganization led by Dean Glenda Gillaspy. It underscores the college’s commitment to investing in its nearly 250 faculty members and ensuring they receive the support they need to thrive throughout their careers.

In this Q&A, White reflects on her first few months in the position and describes next steps to bolster faculty support and development.  

What have you been focusing on so far?

I have jumped into the “career progression” processes, including tenure, post-tenure review and promotion. One special project has been forming and leading the committee for promotion to professor with chair Irwin Goldman. Another major effort has been working closely with Associate Dean Troy Runge on the RISE (Wisconsin Research, Innovation and Scholarly Excellence) campus hiring initiative, which will bring new colleagues to CALS through the RISE-AI, RISE-EARTH and RISE-THRIVE programs. We are excited about the four RISE faculty searches in progress at CALS.

Can you tell us more about the RISE initiative and related faculty searches at CALS?

RISE aims to strategically boost faculty hiring, improve research infrastructure, foster interdisciplinary collaboration, and create new educational opportunities in important areas. In particular, RISE focuses on areas where the university is uniquely positioned to make a meaningful impact on big, complex challenges that are important to both Wisconsin and the world. RISE-EARTH, for instance, homes in on environmental sustainability. RISE-AI is about data and computer sciences, and RISE-THRIVE addresses healthy aging.

At CALS, we’ve developed a RISE hiring process that blends traditional and cluster hiring methods, along with some unique RISE-specific elements. We have identified four college-specific themes: AI to advance life sciences; AI to advance agricultural and natural systems; furthering the bioeconomy; and mitigating climate impacts on agroecosystems and communities. Each theme has a search and screen committee that will lead the recruitment and screening efforts within that theme. I’m chairing the search and screen committee focusing on AI to enhance agricultural and natural systems.

What is the charge of the Promotion to Professor Committee? Is that new?

Yes, over the past few months, I have worked to establish the inaugural committee, which has members from every CALS department. This committee plays a vital role in the promotion process from associate professor to full professor. It ensures that the promotion criteria are met and that the process is fair and transparent. The committee reviews promotion to full dossiers and provides recommendations to the dean.

We’re also exploring ways to make the whole experience more positive for faculty, like elevating the process to have more of a “feeling” of scholarly review, much like divisional committees add scholarly review to tenure decisions and advise the dean on those cases.

How has your career path — as a faculty member and as inaugural director of the Dairy Innovation Hub — prepared you for this new position?

Serving as the faculty director of the Dairy Innovation Hub gave me a unique opportunity to work across departments in CALS to achieve common goals in faculty hiring, funding innovative research, and recruiting trainees. This perspective allowed me to see the unique approaches and aspects across departments. Working with department chairs to achieve common goals is something that I hope to continue in my current role. I’ve also had the opportunity within my department and through the hub to recruit and subsequently mentor new faculty, which is a very fulfilling part of academia.

What has surprised you the most since you started this position?

It has been enjoyable to learn more about the range of research, instruction, extension, and outreach happening across the college through meetings with department chairs and reviewing the many documents and requests that come across my desk such as tenure dossiers, post-tenure review reports and sabbatical requests.

What is your long-term vision for this position?

I would like to become a resource to departments and faculty to further refine the processes and support systems that allow the remarkable talent across the college to effectively and efficiently have impact across our shared missions.