University of Delaware Provost Robin Morgan recently told a group of retired faculty that they had a major impact on her life and career.

“I’ve known many of you,” she said. “I’ve seen many of you throughout the time that my career has developed here at UD, and many of you have been very helpful. I think probably most important, many of you have been the models that I aspire to be.”

The lessons she learned helped guide her since she took the provost position in July, Morgan continued during a luncheon for the UD Association of Retired Faculty (UDARF) on Dec. 4.

“Ask anyone, what do they remember about the University of Delaware?” Morgan said. “What made a difference? It is almost always a person.”

Morgan explained that her focus as provost aligns with the larger University priorities, including hiring, infrastructure updates and the graduate college.

Currently, the University hires about 60 new faculty members each year. UD President Dennis Assanis has said he would like to grow the faculty by 250, for a total of 1,500.

To reach and maintain that total, Morgan said, the number of hires needs to be increased to 80-100 new faculty members each year. This move makes sense, she said, when considering other expansion plans such as the long-term goal to increase the student population by 1,000.

To achieve this, UD will rely on cluster hires and interdisciplinary searches. Morgan said previous searches were successful and have resulted in the hiring of talented new faculty, including faculty members in Africana Studies and Data Science.   

She added that three new cluster searches have recently been launched for candidates in the areas of disaster science and education, biopharmaceutical discovery and coastal water security.

“A lot of planning is going on to think about how we’re going to replace, renew and rebuild our faculty,” she said. “It is not all being done with new assistant professors — hires are occurring across the ranks — but the majority of them will be assistant professors.”

Naturally, conversations about growth lead to questions about office and classroom space, Morgan said. The Tower at STAR and the upcoming Biopharmaceutical Innovation Building, which is expected to open in January of 2020, will provide more space.

Morgan said she has asked people across campus to think about how to make the best use of space at UD. The August 2017 fire in McKinly Laboratory provided a good case study example of space utilization.

Seventy-two lab sections were scheduled to be offered in McKinly during the fall semester. Morgan said faculty were determined not to disrupt the students’ schedules by canceling the labs. Instead, using some creativity, such as holding more sections during evening hours, they were able to relocate sessions so that students were able to take labs they needed.  

The University will rebuild McKinly, but will plan the replacement around themes.  Work in the new building will be interdisciplinary. As the rebuilding occurs, some of the older infrastructure on the main campus will be updated.  

Morgan is also working on establishing a graduate college. She noted that the Faculty Senate passed a resolution in December to extend the date for approving a draft version of by-laws and an organizational structure to Feb. 11, 2019.

Establishing a new college has been challenging, but Morgan is grateful for the efforts put in so far by many faculty, students and administrators to think about what UD most needs. Much of the University’s scholarship and discovery is based on graduate students, and elevating graduate education is a high priority at this time.

“We’re trying to elevate graduate education and at the same time create an even richer experience for undergraduates,” Morgan said.