A number of committees and advisory boards report to the Office of the Provost. Representing various facets of the Wake Forest University community, these bodies help guide and strengthen the University’s curricular and co-curricular offerings in pursuit of achieving its strategic initiatives. For more information about a specific committee or advisory board, please contact the chairperson directly.
The Chambers Fund
The Chambers Fund is designed to provide a source of funding for projects and courses that encourage undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools as well as faculty in entrepreneurial activities using the Internet or electronic commerce. Typical awards range from $1,500 to $10,000. Chambers guidelines: (pdf). For more information, please visit the Chambers’ website.
Current members of the Chambers Family Fund Board.
The Committee on Information Technology
The Committee on Information Technology is charged with the following duties and responsibilities:
- To serve as the principal agency of the Faculty in developing policies relating to information technology.
- To monitor and evaluate policies on computers and information technology.
- To make recommendations for implementation and continuation of policies on computers and information technology, subject to faculty approval.
Current members of the Committee on Information Technology
Roles and Responsibilities of the Committee on Information Technology
The Committee on the Teaching and Learning Center
The Teaching and Learning Center is a resource center for Wake Forest faculty and graduate students at all stages of their careers. The Center hosts events and implements programs designed to bring together faculty and other professionals to share expertise, explore innovations, and discuss the challenges of teaching in and across disciplines. The TLC is controlled by the faculty, participation is voluntary and all records of use are kept confidential.
The Committee on the Teaching and Learning Center is charged with the following duties and responsibilities:
- To select a tenured faculty member who will serve a three-year term as a Faculty Co-Director of the Center. (No one may serve more than two consecutive terms.)
- To advise the Provost’s Office on the selection of an Administrative Co-Director of the Center. The Administrative Co-Director reports to the Associate Provost for Academic Initiatives.
- To develop policies, programming, and activities related to the Center that will serve to strengthen and advance teaching at Wake Forest.
Current members of the Teaching and Learning Center Advisory Board.
The Deans’ Council
The Deans’ Council meets on a biweekly basis during the academic year and provides a forum for the deans and the provost to exchange information about ongoing University initiatives.
Current members of the Deans’ Council.
The Global Advisory Council
The Global Advisory Council, as called for by the University’s QEP (Quality Enhancement Plan), will be composed of representatives who are international “champions” within their academic unit or division. Each will serve for a three-year term subject to renewal.
The broad goals for this council are to:
- Assist the Associate Provost for Global Affairs in planning and evaluating international initiatives on campus.
- Identify ways to make the student experience on campus more international in character and to stimulate student interest in international education.
- Identify opportunities for international academic program coordination, planning, development, and enhancement.
- Develop program guidelines for new international programs (in coordination with the Study Abroad Committee).
- Establish an inventory of international programs/opportunities for students and faculty across academic units.
- Explore international opportunities for collaborative undergraduate and graduate programs/trips across schools and the College.
- Formulate strategies for faculty development and internationalization (including fund-raising), and serve as a panel to review and advise the awarding of foreign grants for faculty and international programs whenever those become available.
- Identify opportunities to solicit and involve external constituents in the development and support of international initiatives.
- Recommend new or revised policies as appropriate in any area of the University to strengthen the international character of the University.
Current members of the Global Advisory Council.
The Information Technology Executive Committee (ITEC)
ITEC is charged with the creation of a strategic plan for Wake Forest academic and administrative computing on the Reynolda Campus. It will determine the long-term vision for the use of information technology and will establish principles, goals and priorities that are consistent with the University strategic plan. The committee’s focus is to assure that the technology infrastructure meets all mission–critical needs, is reliable, secure, cost-effective and positioned to permit long-term flexibility as the technology environment and user needs change. ITEC has ultimate authority to establish information technology priorities to assure that the IS department remains focused on the services and projects that are most important to the Reynolda Campus.
Specific Responsibilities:
- Develop a vision, philosophy, principles, and strategic goals for IT.
- Establish policies that will serve as an appropriate framework for executive decisions on long-term IT strategy to include life-cycle cost analysis (including all direct and indirect operating and capital costs); roles, responsibilities, and delegated authorities; security; access; etc.
- Determine the most practical and affordable technology solutions that will meet University needs.
- Recommend allocations of IT resources to initiatives that best support overall University interests.
- Resolve issues that result from competing goals or views among other special IT committees and/or University departments.
- Receive reports, recommendations, and plans from other specialty committees, work groups, and/or consultants.
- Monitor the status of all approved strategic initiatives, especially those with critical deadlines; and assist in removing obstacles to timely completion of critical initiatives as appropriate.
Current members of the Information Technology Executive Committee.
Roles and Responsibilities of the Information Technology Executive Committee.
IT Partners’ Council
The ITPC is responsible for tier two IT governance and strategy for academic and University administration. The Council focuses on short and long term strategic IT priorities and initiatives and serves as a review board for all ERP customization requests. The Council also makes recommendations to members of ITEC regarding IT procedure and policy change at the administrative and University level. Individual members of the Council serve as department liaisons for individual project development and seek to develop initiatives that sync with the overall University strategic plan.
Roles and Responsibilities of the IT Partners’ Council
The Institutional Review Board
To fulfill its responsibility to protect the rights and welfare of human subjects in research, the University authorizes the IRB to review, approve, require modifications in, or disapprove all research involving human subjects conducted under the auspices of the University (45 CFR 46.109). This includes investigating, reviewing and determining all issues of serious or continuing noncompliance with 45 CFR 46 or IRB policy within a reasonable timeframe and with a corrective plan.
The IRB shall evaluate research in light of the ethical principles set forth in The Belmont Report and codified by Title 45 CFR 46, including its subparts. The primary responsibilities of the IRB include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Ensure that privacy of subjects is protected and confidentiality maintained.
- Ensure that informed consent is sought in language understandable to subjects and obtained under conditions that minimize the possibility of coercion or undue influence.
- Ensure that research includes appropriate safeguards to protect the rights and welfare of all research subjects.
- Ensure that appropriate safeguards are taken when research subjects are members of vulnerable categories or when the research involves greater than minimal risk.
The responsibilities of the IRB endure regardless of the IRB’s geographical location relative to the research.
Current members of the Institutional Review Board.
The Provost’s Fund for Academic Excellence
The Provost’s Fund for Academic Excellence provides 2:1 matching grants of up to $10,000 for endeavors that showcase and reinforce Wake Forest’s teacher-scholar ideal. Priority is given to proposals that facilitate cross-disciplinary intellectual engagement between faculty and students and those that recognize the academic excellence of our faculty and develop scholarly themes and emerging academic and pedagogical issues. Funding can be spread over one or two years. The fund will provide a match for speakers, workshops, artists-in-residence, tutorial grants and conferences that facilitate intellectual community at Wake Forest University by supporting research, teaching, curricular development, and/or creativity.
Current members of the Provost’s Fund for Academic Excellence review board.
The Professional Development Center
The mission of the Professional Development Center is to provide faculty, staff and the broader Winston-Salem community with professional, personal and civic enrichment opportunities through education focused on leadership, interpersonal skills, academic and administrative software, general technical skills and a myriad of special interest topics.
A committee consisting of faculty, staff and administrators meets regularly. The goals for the committee are to:
- centralize, identify, and support diverse professional development needs,
- determine voids in current professional opportunities, and
- discuss opportunities to increase collaboration across campus and with the surrounding community.
Current members of the Professional Development Center council.
The Public Engagement Advisory Board
Building upon the educational philosophy of Wake Forest University and mindful of its motto, Pro Humanitate, the Institute develops for the common good university-wide excellence in public engagement, collaborative skills and interdisciplinary teaching and research. The Institute prepares students for civic leadership, action and reflection and supports innovative relationships among faculty, students, administration, staff, alumni and the broader community.
Current members of the Public Engagement Advisory Board.
The Research Advisory Council
The Research Advisory Council (RAC) is constituted by the Provost’s Office through the Associate Provost for Research and Faculty Affairs. To facilitate RAC effectiveness, the Associate Provost explicitly desires autonomy for this committee.
The RAC is composed of faculty representatives from the various academic divisions of the college and representatives from the graduate and professional schools. At least one junior faculty member serves as a member of the RAC. The Director of Research and Sponsored Programs serves as a permanent non-voting ex officio member.
Wake Forest University broadly defines research to include all creative and scholarly work driven by a quest for human knowledge. The heart of the University is the process of generating, disseminating and critiquing such work; it does so partly in the service of the critical ethical obligation of a society to solve societal problems and address cultural concerns. Although research and teaching are separable in concept, they often become intertwined in practice, especially at Wake Forest, where teaching and research are both highly valued by the faculty. This has three implications for the mission of RAC. First RAC considers and advises about research in the unique Wake Forest context of highly valued teaching and the spirit of Pro Humanitate. Second, RAC fosters the clear conceptual distinction of research from teaching, so that research does not get lost in the overlap. Last, as the RAC considers various research issues, it is more concerned with policy than administration.
The primary responsibilities of the RAC are thus to:
- advocate for improved university infrastructure in support of research,
- facilitate communication between and among faculty and administrative offices on matters of importance to research,
- advise administrative offices and faculty on matters of importance to research,
- support the activities of the Associate Provost for Research,
- come to faculty opinions regarding issues of importance to research,
- provide a forum for faculty who are actively and productively committed to research, and
- review internal funding proposals as requested by the Provost’s Office.
Current members of the Research Advisory Council.
The Senate Planning Committee
The Planning Committee in the Faculty Senate serves in an advisory capacity to the University Provost.
Current members of the Senate Planning Committee.
The Strategic Planning Committee for Innovation in Technology and Information
The committee is charged with investigating the importance of future advances in the fields of technology and information and developing a plan to enable Wake Forest to take best advantage of them. (Learn more about this committee.) It is considering these questions:
- What is the next step that will keep Wake Forest on the forefront of using technology for learning – leveraging our strengths from the laptop initiative?
- What will the academic library look like in 5 years? In 10 years?
- How will students and faculty access information in 5 years? In 10 years?
- How will technology change the use of textbooks and scholarly journals?
- What role will computing technology play in the creation of knowledge in 5 years? In 10 years?
- How should Wake Forest prepare for and leverage these changes?
The Strategic Planning Committee for Information Security is charged to:
- Sponsor awareness of information security needs including information security vulnerabilities, attack vectors, and regulatory requirements to which the University must comply
- Define and recommend information security policy and procedure for approval by the University cabinet
- Define the metrics to assess the University’s security posture
- Support, revise and continually assess and expand the information security action plan
- Ensure that appropriate departmental resources are allocated to implement a comprehensive information security program
- Advocate best practices regarding information security in higher education
Archive (defunct committees, previous search committees, etc):
