INTERVIEW: Jackson-Newsom

Jamie Howell
  Staff Writer

The Carolinian: How were you selected for this position?

Dr. Julia Jackson-Newsom: “I think because of my previous position in the Office of Research and Economic Development I had the pleasure of working with folks from across campus on a variety of initiatives, and so I had gotten to know people in all of the different schools in the college and had those relationships.”

Also, from working in grants administration I also had gotten to know a lot of the processes and procedures and policies here on campus really well. Because when you work with grants you end up touching kind of every piece of the campus: personnel, purchasing, travel, salaries, all those different kinds of things. And so I knew all of those things well from doing that. And a lot of what I worked on in the Office of Research was campus-wide initiatives. Bringing people together from across campus to work together and so I think that experience was something Chancellor Gilliam was looking for and wanting to help him as he comes in new to the university and wanted somebody who kind of had that perspective on campus.

And I have worked closely with Provost Dunn on several things, for instance one of the things that she had asked me to do early when she came last year was to work on conflict of interest issues across campus and so I think that she also, when he [Chancellor Gilliam] asked who could help with some of these things that she suggested that he talk to me. And that’s how it came about.

Q: You were just mentioning the Chancellor, how well do you know him?

A: I’ve gotten to know him pretty well. Yeah, he’s been a pleasure to work with. We have great conversations, he’s incredibly thoughtful. Very intuitive. Get, you know, I think he’s able to really look at situations and pretty quickly, not make judgments but determine what questions need to be asked maybe what the next steps are, if there’s situations that have some problems involved and how we go about solving those problems.

Q: What exactly will you be doing as the Senior Advisor for Strategic Initiatives?

A: Well, I think that the exact nature of my job will be evolving over time as he gets to know the issues on campus and really gets an idea of what he wants to do and I think he’s been saying several times publically, building his team. And so as things really start to gel together I think it will become more obvious exactly what I’ll be working on but for now I am working very closely with him [Chancellor Gilliam] on the strategic planning process and also working closely with provost Dunn who had started that process last year and both of them have a lot of ideas and I think will push the vision forward but neither one of them have the time to really handle making sure that the process happens the way that it needs to happen. And making sure that we get the input that we need from across campus pulling the committee together and having some goals and really getting to the end of this so that we can really move forward with implementing the plan.

I feel like there’s so many things. A lot of what he’s doing right now is working with the Office of Advancement to get out and about and meet people get to know our alumni, get to know our community members. And part of what I’m helping with right now is thinking through some of the strategy and helping him to draft talking points that connect back where we think we’re headed with our strategic plan, and also that might help speak to those audiences. For instance, yesterday he had a meeting with the Rotary Club and gave a talk and I helped with those talking points partly because I’ve also interacted a good bit with folks in the community, and a lot of what he ended up talking about was research in the community which is what I used to work. I think part of it will be making sure, any time you work in a big system and the university is a large system, trying to make sure that all of the pieces are talking to each other and that we’re all aware the potential impact of those decisions might be for other people on campus.

You’ll hear, one of the common terms that people talk about in businesses but I think on campus we have these silos where people are kind of doing their own thing and he’s very interested in really trying to break down those silos and getting people talking to each other and connecting across boundaries so that we’re all working with a common vision toward a common goal.

Q: You mentioned that you’ve done some work like this before, was that with other places on campus?

A: I worked in the School of Education as the Director of Research and part of my job there was to pull together people from within the six departments in the School of Education around common interests and get them looking at research projects and grant proposals together. I  moved to the office of Research and Economic Development, which supports the entire campus so the central Office of Research and that job expanded into not just within one school but trying to get people from within and across the different schools and colleges to work together. And so one of the things I’ve worked on a lot is working with the science and math faculty across the university.

There are a lot of folks on campus whose work has something to do with science and math. So I was part of the original group that started the RISE network which is the Research and Instruction in STEM Education network with is a group of faculty from across campus who have a vested interest in science and math and came together to pool resources and work with students together to try to make sure that they’re not falling through the cracks.

Q: The Chancellor has said a lot about what he wants, but what do you think he wants to do on campus?

A: Well I don’t want to speak for him but what I can speak to is what I think he sees, I know he sees a lot of strengths on this campus and wants to really be able to maximize the potential that he thinks our campus has. One thing you’ll hear him say a lot is he’s tired of hearing that we’re the best kept secret: Why are we a secret?

I do think that he is going to be working hard to find a way to get the word out about who we are and what we do to better tell our story and I think that he very much wants to focus on us being a school about opportunity. Providing opportunity, that’s part of our legacy. And that it’s still currently a very valuable part of who we are and he wants to make sure that he can continue to do that I think if you look at the strategic plan, what I think he wants to do is to give people a framework that provides some general guidance about where we all collectively want campus to go and he is very open about the fact the he has a vision but he wants it to be a collective vision.

He also wants a vision that’s flexible, recognizing that things change very quickly. Sometimes things that are completely out of our control, for instance the budget. And he wants people to have the flexibility to take advantage of the opportunities that they see as seeing really advantages without feeling too pinned in.

The other thing that I will say that I’ve just observed, but I think that the Chancellor and the Provost are working really well together. And very respectful of each other’s roles and really rely on each other for guidance and input. And it think that’s really a strength that we have going for our campus right now provost Dunn is the Chief Academic Officer, she oversees the Deans and she really is charged with making sure that the academic direction is moving the right way. He [Chancellor Gilliam] very much respects that and goes to her when things related to the academic mission of the institution comes up.

Q: When do you think the Strategic Plan will be complete?

A: We are working on trying to finalize a timeline, doing forums through mid-November to get feedback on the general overall framework that we have and then we will try pretty quickly to get the committee together. I’m hoping that when people come back for the spring semester that we will be ready or very close to being ready to give it to the units and departments and have them begin the process of aligning their goals and their specific plans with the larger university plan.

Q: Is there anything else that you’d like to add?

A: This is my ninth year at UNCG and I’m really excited. I think I’m very optimistic and I think if we can get through sort of just the transition and just get everything organized and put together the way that he would really think is going to be best in terms of the way that we function I think that we’re going to be able to do a lot of great and fun things on campus. I really hope, and he has an incredibly busy schedule but I would encourage people, if they have the opportunity to really take advantage of that to just talk to him and get to know him a little bit because he’s a really interesting person to talk to and I really think that he is going to make a huge difference. One other thing we mention about the strategic plan, while I’m thinking about it. So the other part of the plan will be to develop some university metrics because part of having a plan is to provide direction. You need to know ‘are we going in the right direction?’ That’s where the metrics come in. If we’re not hitting our metrics than maybe we need to step back and take a look at the goals that we set and perhaps we haven’t really set the right goals to get us to where we need to be. So I do think that is something that people will hear him talk about, and I don’t mean assessment as in standardized tests, I mean he is a very data-driven person and I think that will be an important part of the plan.