Building itself upon the foundations of talent and leadership needed once students graduate, the Office of the Provost at Grand Valley State University prides itself on fostering academic excellence and active involvement throughout their community in their students.

While there have been recent changes in the office – with Mary Albrecht being promoted to special associate to the provost and Jan Aussicker being hired to replace Albrecht as the confidential executive assistant – more personnel changes are on the way.

Gayle Davis, provost and executive vice president for Academic and Student Affairs, indicated that there was an internal search conducted for the two new associate vice presidents within the office.

“Associate Vice President Jon Jellema, retiring, and Nancy Giardina, return to faculty of Movement Sciences, decided to leave their positions in my office and the new people hired as assistant vice presidents will replace them,” Davis said. “I am thrilled to welcome the new AVP’s and the new confidential assistant as I helped make those hiring choices.”

Edward Aboufadel, a mathematics professor, and Suzeanne Benet, a professor of marketing, have been named as the new assistant vice presidents in Academic and Student Affairs.

Aboufadel, who has over a decade of academic leadership at GVSU, including work as a department chair and serves on the faculty senate, will focus on faculty issues, primarily with personnel policies and practices.

“I will be working with the faculty senate and associated committees on questions related to personnel policies and procedures,” Aboufadel said. “I will also be involved in the administration of the new LIFT surveys (Laker Impressions of Faculty Teaching).”

“I am looking forward to being a part of addressing a clear set of challenges ahead: re-accreditation, working with insufficient financial resources and social changes – cultural, economic, political, demographic and technological – some which are coming at us faster than we can keep up. These lead to tasks, problems and initiatives that we can barely anticipate.”

Benet, who has been at GVSU for the last 23 years and has been the department chair for the marketing department for 13, will be responsible for a range of student success policies and their practices.

“I am very excited about the new position and the challenges it will bring as my specific focus will be on student success,” Benet said. “I think we have a number of great programs to assist students with getting through their curriculum, but I hope to bring some new perspective to discussions on how to get even more of our students to finish their degrees and graduate, particularly inside of the six-year window that is often used for comparison purposes with other universities.”

Even with the all the recent changes made, the office continues to emphasize the initiatives prevalent throughout academic and student affairs which will benefit the students learning on campus.

“All these positions support the many initiatives and projects of Academic and Student Affairs,” Davis said. “The AVP positions are responsible for all the personnel policies and practices affecting all the university’s hundreds of faculty.”

Some of these include working with the University Academic Senate in the shared governance system, coordinating university student advising, managing the new faculty orientations and convocations during the year and attending to grievances from students, faculty or staff.

For more information about the Provost’s Office and the plans for Academic and Student Affairs, visit www.gvsu.edu/provost.