Tag: Provost

  • NC A&T Provost Tonya Smith-Jackson Named Chancellor of Rutgers University–Newark

    NC A&T Provost Tonya Smith-Jackson Named Chancellor of Rutgers University–Newark

    Dr. Tonya Smith-JacksonNorth Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University Provost Dr. Tonya Smith-Jackson has been appointed chancellor of Rutgers University–Newark, marking a significant leadership transition for the public research university.

    Smith-Jackson, a human factors engineer who has served as provost and executive vice chancellor for Academic Affairs at NC A&T since 2013, will assume her new role on August 1. Her appointment was approved unanimously by the Rutgers Board of Governors and announced jointly by current President Dr. Jonathan Holloway and President-designate Dr. William F. Tate IV.

    “Tonya Smith-Jackson is a person of principles and values who has dedicated her professional life to making transformative changes in higher education,” Holloway said in announcing the appointment.

    At NC A&T, the nation’s largest historically Black college and university, Smith-Jackson has overseen remarkable growth and innovation. Under her leadership, the university has launched three new doctoral programs and created the state’s first bachelor’s degree program in artificial intelligence. She has also presided over dramatic increases in both research staff and graduate assistants.

    Her tenure at NC A&T has been marked by the establishment of three new Centers of Excellence focused on cybersecurity, product design and manufacturing, and entrepreneurship and innovation. Smith-Jackson also led the university’s successful recognition as an anchor institution by the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities.

    Prior to her current role, Smith-Jackson chaired NC A&T’s Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering and directed multiple research initiatives, including a cybersecurity center, the Human Factors Analytics Lab, and the laboratory for Cyber-Human Analytics Research for the Internet of Things.

    Smith-Jackson brings a unique blend of academic, corporate, and government experience to her new role. She holds a doctorate in psychology/ergonomics and an interdisciplinary Master of Science degree in psychology and industrial engineering.

    Before joining NC A&T, she spent 14 years at Virginia Tech, advancing from assistant professor to full professor of industrial and systems engineering. Her professional experience also includes engineering roles at IBM and Ericsson Mobile Communications, as well as a year-long appointment as program director in the National Science Foundation’s Cyber-Human Systems Program from 2018-2019.

    Smith-Jackson said that her approach to higher education leadership is deeply rooted in personal experience and family values.

    “Inspired by my parents’ belief in education as a pathway to liberation, meaning and purpose, I’ve dedicated my life to helping others obtain college degrees and upward mobility,” she said.

    President-designate Tate said that Smith-Jackson’s background positions her well for the role.

    “As an engineer with contributions to human factors research, she brings a systems-oriented, people-centered approach well suited to leading an urban university,” Tate said. “I look forward to partnering with her to expand opportunity pathways, advance impactful research and promote economic development for the region and the state.”

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  • UNC Chapel Hill Provost Stepping Down Amid Civic Life Strife

    UNC Chapel Hill Provost Stepping Down Amid Civic Life Strife

    The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s provost is stepping down next month to return to the faculty there, a development that news articles last week suggested is tied to his disagreement with hiring practices at the School of Civic Life and Leadership, or SCiLL.

    In a statement Friday to Inside Higher Ed, Chris Clemens, the outgoing provost, said, “I made the decision to step down as provost. During my time as provost, I’ve been able to address challenges I care deeply about and make meaningful progress. However, the issues that have arisen in recent days are not ones I can solve, and I don’t feel the same passion for them.”

    His statement didn’t explain what these recent issues are, and Chapel Hill spokespeople didn’t provide further information beyond campus chancellor Lee Roberts’s April 3 announcement that Clemens had decided to step down.

    Clemens will return May 16 to being the Jaroslav Folda Distinguished Professor of Physics and Astronomy, Roberts said in that announcement. Clemens has been provost since early 2022, starting under former chancellor Kevin M. Guskiewicz, who’s now president of Michigan State University. Roberts credited Clemens with, among other things, helping establish the School of Data Science and Society, the Program for Public Discourse, and SCiLL.

    SCiLL was established after Chapel Hill’s Board of Trustees passed a resolution in January 2023 asking the campus administration to “accelerate its development” of this new school. The then–board chair called SCiLL an effort to “remedy” a shortage of “right-of-center views” on campus. Controversy quickly ensued. Faculty said they didn’t know a whole school was in development.

    The Republican-controlled State Legislature then passed a law requiring Chapel Hill to establish the school and hire 10 to 20 faculty from outside the university, plus make them eligible for tenure. It became one of many civics or civil discourse centers—critics have called them conservative centers—that Republican lawmakers and higher education leaders have established at public universities in recent years.

    In January 2025, Clemens canceled the latest SCiLL tenure-track faculty searches before reversing course days later. Articles in The Assembly and the conservative Real Clear Investigations have now implied that Clemens’s departure was connected to his involvement in the disagreements over hiring within SCiLL.

    Clemens, a self-described conservative, had been an advocate for SCiLL. The Real Clear Investigations article was titled, before the headline was changed, “In North Carolina, Academic Conservatives Have Met the Enemy and It Is … Them.”

    In his Friday statement, Clemens said, “I look forward to returning to the faculty to resume work on optical design technology, with a particular focus on applications for the SOAR telescope and astronomy. This will allow me to spend more time in the classroom—an aspect of academic life I have greatly missed.”

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