Alejandra Aguilar
Assistant Editor
Kathleen Weaver and Keith Lord have recently been appointed to leadership positions in which they plan to continue supporting ULV faculty and students.
Weaver, associate professor of biology and former assistant dean is now serving as the director of the La Verne Experience, and Keith Lord, professor of art, has taken the post of assistant dean for program reviews for the College of Arts and Sciences.
The La Verne Experience is one of the University’s institutional identities and consists of values, relationships and educational cultures — it is what makes a student’s experience at La Verne unique.
As new director for the La Verne Experience, Weaver, along with Professor of Law Kevin Marshall, will launch the La Verne Experience Fellows Program during the fall to support the teaching and research of La Verne faculty.
This will allow faculty to apply for funding and resources needed for their academic research.
“We are excited for the opportunity to work with passionate faculty and students across all University programs, populations and colleges,” Weaver said.
Weaver said the La Verne Experience helps students to bring theory to practice, to engage in the community and to integrate reflection into learning.
She said that supporting these aspects of the La Verne Experience makes students stand out from students at other colleges.
As for Lord’s new assignment, part of the University’s educational culture consists of program reviews, which are reports that each department in each college is responsible for submitting every few years.
The reports look at the strengths and weaknesses of each department, identify goals that are used for budgeting and are used by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, or WASC, which is one of six official academic bodies responsible for the accreditation of public and private universities, colleges, secondary and elementary schools in the United States.
Lord will manage the program reviews, which have become more important in figuring out budgets.
He said he plans to rewrite guidelines for the reviews and streamline the process.
“My big plan is to convey to the departments how useful these are,” Lord said. “They can be a valuable tool to see where they want to go and how they want to get there.”
The reviews eventually will be used for multi-year budgeting.
“Multi-year budgeting helps the University to think about how best to support institutional initiatives over the long term,” University President Devorah Lieberman said.
“If we plan our budgets thinking about only the year we are about to enter, then we are only thinking about what we need to support financially right now,” Lieberman said. “This is a prudent way to ensure that, as an institution, we are financially stable and fiscally responsible. It also allows for more transparency about where we are investing and budgeting.”
Lord added: “I’m looking forward to working with my colleagues to move toward more transparency in the budget process and more understanding among the numerous departments in the college,” Lord said.
Alejandra Aguilar can be reached at alejandra.aguilar@laverne.edu.
