Academic Affairs

Remarks from Acting Provost Neva J. Specht

Thank you, Chancellor Norris, and welcome everyone. Thank you to everyone who is here in the room with us today as well as those joining via livestream. We appreciate your participation in this important meeting of all faculty and staff.

During today’s meeting, we’re pleased to bring you updates on student success initiatives. You’ll also hear from Staff Senate and Student Government leadership. Typically during this spring meeting, we also hear from the Chair of Faculty Senate, but unfortunately, neither Chair Bergman nor Vice Chair Zwetsloot were able to join us today. I look forward to joining the Faculty Senate at their regularly scheduled meeting on Monday.

The primary focus of the Academic Affairs update today will be student success. In my remarks I will:

• provide a brief update on the Innovation District’s academic building, energy district and the faculty/staff housing;
• share an overview of the university’s performance metrics referenced by Chancellor Norris a few minutes ago;
• share some information related to our expected research designation through the Carnegie Classification system;
• provide an update on planning for academic offerings at the Hickory campus;
• provide an update on collaborations with Project Kitty Hawk; and
• provide an update on our collaboration with NCInnovation.

In addition to my update, Assistant Vice Provost of Student Success Shernita Lee, Assistant Vice Provost of General and Experiential Education Ted Zerucha and Director of Career Development Jennifer Shaffer will all share updates regarding student success initiatives.

I’ll take a moment here to say that we’re aware of and monitoring changes to federal policies and how they may impact higher education, including our university. I’d like to reiterate that changes in federal policies are nothing new for us. Currently, there’s nothing requiring us to make any changes at App State. If any changes become necessary, my colleagues and I will work with our teams to communicate and provide support.

I’ll turn now to an update on the Innovation District. Construction continues to move forward, with the benefit of the recent mild weather. You may have noticed the new wind turbines that have been erected on the hillside. The builders are completing the final steps to make them fully functional and tie them in with the zero-carbon district energy system. Ground-mounted solar panels, which will also be part of the energy system, are on track to be installed later this spring.

Also during the district’s Phase One development, progress continues on construction of new faculty and staff housing units. Despite delays due to the hurricane and the extreme weather in January, we anticipate residents being able to move in this fall. We’ve invited Radnor Property Group and Harrison Street, the housing development team, to share information at upcoming meetings of the Faculty Senate, Staff Senate and additional groups. A working group representing faculty and staff, headed by Pilar Fotta, assistant director of relocation and dual careers assistance, is developing criteria for allocating these housing units, which have already generated significant interest.

Finally, we expect to begin construction on the district’s STEM Academic Building later this spring as well. 

These infrastructure updates are critical to supporting our academic mission.

As we turn to student success initiatives, I’ll share a bit about our institutional performance metrics, which measure our growth in key areas. These metrics align with the UNC System Strategic Plan and emphasize undergraduate student success, as well as affordability and university productivity. They include a strong emphasis on degree efficiency and reducing student debt.

The performance metrics being assessed include:

• the institutional four-year graduation rate for first-time, full-time bachelor’s degree-seeking students;
• undergraduate degree efficiency — the number of undergraduate degrees awarded per 100 full-time equivalent undergraduates;
• average credits earned per year for full-time undergraduate, degree-seeking students;
• first-time students’ debt at graduation;
• transfer students’ debt at graduation; and
• education and related expenses per degree.

App State's funding allocations are tied to success in these areas, with performance weighting established with the UNC System — based on how actual performance compares to baseline and stretch goals unique to each campus relative to its own historical performance.

Specific details about our performance metrics and our progress to the goals are posted on the App State’s Future website. Just go to the university homepage and click the block that reads, “What’s in App State’s future?”

A quick note that these are not a measure of individual program return on investment (ROI); however, it’s certainly worth repeating that all of our programs have positive ROI for in-state, undergraduate students.

Our pending Carnegie Classifications are additional performance indicators.

As Chancellor Norris and I have been sharing, our Carnegie Classification is reviewed every three years by the American Council on Education. Research designations are based on two quantitative metrics: research expenditures and doctoral degrees awarded. 

In the last three years, the innovative efforts of our faculty and staff have assisted in increasing research dollars invested in App State, allowing more students to work side by side with faculty who are seeking and applying knowledge to solve problems and sharing their findings in peer-reviewed and published academic research. 

App State researchers have steadily built — with staffing, processes and research opportunities — a foundation for our new, higher levels of research and creative activity productivity. We've been evolving over time to arrive at this moment because of the dedication, involvement and success of faculty and staff in innovative and meaningful research, much of which has provided opportunities for student scholarship.

The depth of our expertise facilitates our ability to differentiate ourselves on a national scale as offering a high-quality education that utilizes local-to-global applications and tailors technology, business and social systems to build strong communities around the world. We expect to receive recognition of this by the American Council on Education.

Of course, we are still, at our core, a teaching institution, and that will always remain fundamental to our identity. It’s why we remain focused on student success and including students in our research and creative endeavors, offering educational opportunities that wouldn’t be available to them at other institutions.

Our growth and advancement are a result of your innovative research and academic practices that span a range of strengths and areas of expertise and that set App State apart, positioning our university as a recognized leader across multiple disciplines in our region, the nation and the world.

Over the past year, App State celebrated a record-breaking year in terms of the number and dollar amount of awards sought and received, surpassing $25 million awarded!

And of course, this success provides more opportunities to creatively educate, engage and prepare our students.

As we continue to evolve and expand our research and creative endeavors, we will remain focused on areas in which App State strategically leads and where the market shows demand. 

This expansion will be informed by our new Academic Strategic Plan and our Research Strategic Plan, and we don't anticipate a broad or universal change in workload balance in the areas of teaching, research, creative activities and service.

A working group, led by Dr. Christine Ogilvie Hendren, vice provost of research and innovation, is engaged in a full assessment of all related factors for our university.

Additionally, the Office of Research and Innovation, with support from the Transportation Insight Center for Entrepreneurship, is also working to connect and coach faculty on their paths to protecting and commercializing intellectual property that has the potential to generate value and financial impact for the state of North Carolina, which I’ll talk about more in a few moments.

The Hickory campus now serves more than 500 students. These students are learning in newly completed science and cybersecurity labs. Construction work on the second floor is underway, which will include creating more classrooms and offices, some of which will be ready by fall 2025.

Programs offered at our Hickory campus continue to be refined to align with our academic and research strategic plans and to meet the needs of the community, region and state. It is important that App State offers the majors that students want, provides students with the ability to complete General Education and business core courses, and supports the workforce needs of the region. 

We are committed to ensuring students can pick the best path to earn undergraduate degrees in four years. We are continuing to develop options for Hickory-only programs and additional graduate degrees that support areas where we strategically lead and where the market shows demand. 

As we continue to work with the deans on defining and developing signature programs for the Hickory campus, in fall 2026, the App State Hickory campus will welcome its first cohort of students to a hybrid Doctor of Nursing Practice degree program, designed to educate family practice nurse practitioners and respond to health care provider shortages, especially in rural areas.

Moving forward, we’ll rely heavily on our Academic and Research and Creative Activities Strategic Plans — which you can find on the Academic Affairs and Institutional Research, Assessment and Planning websites — to inform how we can best serve the state and region with a variety of educational options, including the exploration of additional graduate degrees in support of areas where we strategically lead and where the market shows demand.

As we develop programs with future enrollment in mind, we are planning for steady numbers in Boone — consistent with the last five years — and increased enrollment on the Hickory campus and for our online programs, including those powered by Project Kitty Hawk. I’ll talk more about that in just a moment.

App State Online continues to provide an excellent option for students who wish to attain their educational goals and career aspirations, but are place-bound.

Our partnership with Project Kitty Hawk represents a significant extension of the university’s 50 online programs. Since signing an agreement with Project Kitty Hawk last April, we’ve added five online programs to our portfolio, which are designated as Flight Path programs. 

You may recall in Chancellor Norris’ message to campus last Friday, she reported that App State had record spring enrollment. This included 154 Flight Path students in our five current programs. The PKH programs are already contributing significantly to our overall enrollment numbers, demonstrating that we are responding to demand from nontraditional students.

Last fall, we offered Bachelor of Science degree programs in health care management and business administration in supply chain management, and this spring, we added three new programs to this portfolio: bachelor’s degrees in accounting, criminal justice, and organizational leadership and learning. These five undergraduate programs target busy, working adults who — through Project Kitty Hawk — have 24/7 technical support, personalized coaching and advising, and multiple start dates to meet their needs. These programs also help provide flexible opportunities — for adult learners in particular — across the state and beyond.

We spun these programs up very quickly, and I want to thank the many people in IT and Enrollment Management and Academic Affairs who jumped in, adapted systems and created new ones so we could meet the ambitious goals we set for offering these programs.

This level of support would not be possible without the UNC System’s vision and guidance, the PKH team’s support and the efforts of our faculty and staff to make our PKH partnership successful for our students.

With Chancellor Norris’ recent appointment to the Board of Directors for Project Kitty Hawk, we look forward to this strong partnership continuing.

Before I conclude my update, I want to be sure to highlight our work with NCInnovation. You may recall, from Chancellor Norris’ updates and some nice media coverage, that NCInnovation is a nonprofit organization that provides grant funding, mentorship and partnership development to support researchers at North Carolina’s public universities.

NCInnovation hubs assist researchers by connecting them with industry and business services, helping advance their research so it can become widely available and applicable for the marketplace.

In May 2024, Dr. Rahman Tashakkori in the Department of Computer Science was awarded over $640,000 in grant funding from NCInnovation for his work on the Beemon Hive Monitoring System to study honeybees, and to help bring parts of the system to market that will assist other bee farmers with increasing hive production and decreasing honeybee die-off.

Since then, the UNC System has announced that App State would become a regional NCInnovation hub. Our collaboration with NCInnovation not only enhances opportunities for our faculty, staff and students, but it also supports the vital mission of translating university research into solutions that benefit the people and economies of our state and region.

It’s an exciting step forward for App State and for Western North Carolina, and it will come with additional opportunities.

Thank you for your time and attention. There’s great work taking place here, and I enjoy every opportunity to share it with you. I thank you for all you are doing!

And I know there is more to come!

At this time, I invite assistant vice provost of student success, Dr. Shernita Lee, to share her update.

Remarks from Assistant Vice Provost of Student Success Shernita Lee

Good afternoon.

To Chancellor Norris and Provost Specht, thank you for providing me with the opportunity to highlight Student Success and our commitment to it. To the faculty and staff, I want to thank you for all that you do to support our students. Student success is truly a collaborative initiative and can only be achieved to meet our black and gold standards through information and resource sharing, collaborations and frequent engagement to recognize and respond to the evolving needs of our students.

Our mission is to aid in the development, promotion and support of learning for all students. 

Oxford Dictionary defines success as the accomplishment of an aim or purpose. Our students start their journey at App State in various phases yet many of them have a common goal, even if  it’s unstated, unknown or yet to be discovered, which is to obtain a degree from App State. Not all students will have the same strides or hurdles in their journey to degree completion. But, we want to offer steady, consistent and intentional support to cheer them along and provide them with the encouragement and motivation to stay the course. Because we know the course will be worthwhile, especially as they beam with pride at commencement. You can learn more about student success, its units and institutional resources by visiting our website. With your support, we want students to continue to strive for success as measured through our retention, persistence and graduation metrics, along with making their experience here memorable through community-building, a strong sense of belonging and providing academic support and resources. 

As mentioned, student success is a collaborative effort and we are stronger as a collective. As faculty and staff, you spend significant time teaching and supporting our students. This time allows you to foster strong relationships with the students and get a firsthand glimpse into any current or future hurdles in their journey. Once students are identified and information is shared with Student Success, we partner with units to share resources and options for support, reduce barriers when possible, and take time to collaboratively plan to support students. I often tell students once they feel comfortable sharing more information about their academic careers, that their story may or may not be unique, but what it does reveal is an opportunity for Student Success to respond to their individual needs and the needs of many others. Students are the pulse of Student Success and you are an integral part of that journey. You observe and help develop their potential and want to see them succeed. Striving is all about making great efforts and you are truly committed to sustaining them. So, let’s strive together. Strive to be an example. Strive to inspire others. Strive to support students to the finish line.

Thank you!

Remarks from Assistant Vice Provost of General and Experiential Education Ted Zerucha

To follow up Shernita’s updates on student success efforts, I am going to share some updates from General and Experiential Education, which encompasses multiple programs and offices who engage, support and educate our students

University College Academic Advising:

• This includes University College Academic Advising, who works with undeclared, degree-seeking undergraduate students as well as declared students in Professional Studies.
• Our advisors significantly contribute to student success and retention by providing personalized support, guidance and resources to our students.
• To illustrate a bit of the scope of their work, last year our advisors had 219,385 total contacts with students, including 29,537 advising appointments.

Office of Student Research:

• The Office of Student Research supports and promotes student learning through mentored research and creative experiences — thus providing opportunities for experiential hands-on learning under the mentorship of our faculty.
  • Last year OSR awarded almost $100,000 to students to perform and present their research and creative activities.
  • They awarded an additional $72,000 in the form of 60 Undergraduate Research Assistantships to provide undergraduate students the opportunity to work with a faculty mentor.

Nationally Competitive Scholarships:

• Nationally Competitive Scholarships has been housed in its current form in University College for almost six years. 
• This office actively engages and advises students in the pursuit of funding to achieve their academic, professional and personal goals — including applying for scholarships such as the Boren, Gilman and Fulbright.
• I did want to take a moment to highlight the remarkable success of this program over the last several years with one example:
  • In the last five cycles, we have produced 15 students awarded Fulbrights — eclipsing by far our numbers prior to this — meaning this office is now helping students by earning as many awards annually as in those previous 60 years combined.
  • This success has resulted in Appalachian being recognized as a top Fulbright Producer in the United States in three of the last five years.
  • It is important to note that in addition to this success, the Nationally Competitive Scholarships team works with a significantly greater number of students to develop proposals that, even if not funded, help develop critical thinking and effective communication skills.

Professional Studies Program:

• Professional Studies is the sole degree-granting program in University College, housed in Hickory and offered in Boone, Hickory and online.
• This flexible, multidisciplinary program began in fall 2023 and was designed for traditional students as well as part way home students looking to complete a degree program for personal achievement, as they look to enter the workforce, make a career change or advance within their current workplace.
• In its two years of existence, Professional Studies has graduated 23 students and currently has 136 majors.

General Education Program:

• One of the major updates I wanted to talk about is that next fall we will begin a new General Education Program.
• Gen Ed 3 is the culmination of efforts that began in fall 2020 with us collecting input from students, faculty and staff that helped shape this new program.
• The revised Gen Ed has been designed to be leaner, with a decrease in hours, to provide more flexibility to students and to be more transfer friendly.
• The new Gen Ed aligns with our new QEP and with Appalachian’s mission to shape students into globally minded, responsible members of society who engage with and actively contribute to their communities and our core values, including sustainability and resilience — this being even more poignant in light of our recovery efforts following Helene.

Foundations of American Democracy:

• One final update concerns the new Foundations of American Democracy requirement created last year by the UNC System for all students seeking a baccalaureate degree from a UNC institution, including Appalachian.
• This has been moving very quickly to be ready for implementation next fall as we have set up a governance structure and process for approving classes for this new requirement.
• While not formally a part of the Gen Ed program, most of the classes that have been approved to date for this requirement and those in the pipeline are also in Gen Ed, in addition to having multiple transfer options, which we hope will allow students to be able to satisfy this requirement as efficiently as possible.

Common Reading Program:

Finally, I wanted to share news on our Common Reading Program. Since 1997, our incoming freshmen have been provided with and asked to read a book as part of orientation and that is incorporated into events throughout the year as well as first year seminar. This helps students establish a shared experience with other new students and develop a sense of community while introducing them to a part of the academic life they are beginning at Appalachian.
I am thrilled to announce next summer's common reading book as “Callings” by Dave Isay. This book is based on oral history interviews recorded for the StoryCorps nonprofit, where people from across the U.S. share their inspirational stories of their journeys to find the jobs they are meant to do.

I hope you found these brief updates from General and Experiential education to be useful, and I’m appreciative for the opportunity to have been able to share them with you. Our goals are to develop, support and enrich our students and provide them a first-class, multifaceted, well-rounded education representative of Appalachian, and in doing so, introduce them to ideas and content, develop the intellectual skills employers consistently tell us they are looking for in our graduates and prepare them for their own journeys to find their callings.

With that, I will hand things off to Jennifer.

Remarks from Director of Career Development Jennifer Shaffer

Like the generations before them, students and families today are questioning whether a college degree is worth their time and money. Yet, data across all higher education pathways and demographic subgroups consistently tell the same story: that students want college to give them the skills, knowledge and credentials to help them secure a good job that propels them to a good career and a good life. It’s far and away the top reason why individuals pursue a college degree. Additionally, new data tells us not only that students go to school to get a job, but that clearly defined career goals play an important role in determining if they actually complete their degree. So while we know there is value in a college education, both in the short term and in the long run, it is incumbent upon us to deliver a strong return on investment.

That being said, career readiness is more important than ever, and it needs to happen throughout a student's academic career, not just at the end. While the Career Development Center has been making great strides in scaling services and making them more accessible to all students, we can’t do it alone. We need partnerships across campus to drive student success in meeting milestones that secure their learning and development starting in their first year and steadily building with a scaffolded approach over time. 

I spend a great deal of time talking about National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) Competencies, the foundational skills that broadly prepare the college educated for success in the workplace and lifelong career management. Evidence shows that what is being taught in the classroom are the skills students need — like communication, critical thinking, teamwork, etc. However, there is a need for greater transparency and intentionality to ensure students are aware of what these skills are, how they are using them and that they are job skills. I’d like to share some initiatives that will offer support in this.

In fall 2025, our center will launch a new career curriculum that takes students through four modules of skill development and gives them the opportunity to earn badges as they complete activities related to career readiness. This curriculum not only supports students in their discovery and practice of competencies, it also focuses on supporting reflection, translation and articulation. We are currently seeking faculty and staff partners to engage with us. Participation could be as simple as assigning students to complete the NACE Assessment Tool, attend a career center event or giving extra credit for connecting with folks in their industry on LinkedIn. It could include inviting a career coach to speak to their classes or list potential career skills alongside the desired learning outcomes for each assignment on the syllabus. There are many ways to incorporate career readiness into the curriculum, and we are eager to collaborate with anyone who is interested.

We also have two new platforms that launched this spring that support our strategic goal of scaling and making career support more widespread: uConnect and Resume AI. uConnect is a 24/7 comprehensive hub of resources and information that supports students’ career journeys from exploration to launch. It features resources like labor market insights and trends, how to develop and practice competencies, tailored career communities and access to experiential learning opportunities and jobs through targeted RSS feeds. 

Similarly, Resume AI leverages the newest artificial intelligence and large language model technology to transform student resumes from generic to job-winning. It provides personalized feedback and highlights the exact areas for improvement, scoring resumes on key criteria like readability, credibility, format and ATS fit.

If you are interested in an overview of either platform and how it may be useful to your students, please reach out to me. We, of course, have many more goals and objectives on the horizon for the Career Development Center, including increasing experiential learning opportunities, which is top of mind for employers hiring new grads, so I look forward to other opportunities to share with you in the future.

Thank you for your time and I look forward to collaborating with you.

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