For the first time in a year, the University of Arkansas at Little Rock has a permanent provost.
Ann Bain, dean of the university's College of Education and Health Professions, has assumed the role of executive vice chancellor and provost, previously held on an interim basis by Christina Drale.
Drale was appointed the university's chancellor in September.
In her new role as the university's chief academic officer, Bain will have to oversee decision-making processes to re-prioritize and potentially eliminate university academic programs. That's part of a continuing planning process to adjust UALR to its contracted budget and dwindling student population, beyond more temporary adjustments that have taken place so far. Those include hiring freezes and discontinuation of certain nonacademic programs until numbers improve.
Bain was not available for an interview Friday. In a university announcement of her appointment, Bain acknowledged the precarious time at which she's taking on the provost role.
"I recognize that I am accepting this position at a challenging time in the history of this university," she said. "But with challenging times comes great opportunity."
Bain has a good relationship with faculty, said Amanda Nolen, faculty senate president. Nolen has also worked with Bain for years as a professor in the College of Education and Health Professions.
"I think this particular university at this time benefits from a relationship between the faculty and the provost," Nolen said.
That partnership is essential, Nolen said, but also potentially fragile.
"I'm confident from my experience working with Dr. Bain," Nolen said. "She has the requisite skill to continue working on that relationship."
Provosts are responsible for oversight of academic and academic support programs.
"That's a pretty big job in and of itself," Drale said. "On top of that, with our current planning process, the provost is really going to have to look carefully at our programs as we look at possible cuts in the future. This person is going to have to be able to lead and oversee that process with a lot of authority and a lot of knowledge."
Bain is good for that job, Drale said. Bain was dean of the College of Education and Health Professions when it was formed during university restructuring and has continued to consolidate programs and find other ways to be efficient in that role, Drale said.
Nolen also cited Bain's oversight of the restructuring as an example of her leadership skills. The College of Education and Health Professions was a combination of three departments.
"To bring them together and managing what could have been culture clash and jockeying for leverage and position, she was able to manage that pretty carefully," Nolen said.
Before that, Bain was interim dean of the College of Sciences. Before that, she was chairwoman for 16 years of the nursing program, now the university's largest academic program. It was a 100-student associate degree program when Bain took over and later became a five-degree, 900-student program.
"I think she's a really solid manager," Drale said.
Bain was hired as an assistant professor of nursing at UALR 32 years ago, according to the university's announcement of her provost appointment. In 1998, she earned a doctorate in higher education administration from the school.
A Little Rock native, Bain received her bachelor's and master's degrees -- both in nursing -- from the University of Central Arkansas. Before UALR, Bain worked as a nurse at several Little Rock hospitals.
In addition to being the most-recent dean of the College of Education and Health Professions, Bain has been serving as co-chairwoman of the university's Institutional Effectiveness Committee. That committee has reviewed reports from the university's 241 curricular and noncurricular programs to analyze their efficiency. It's also designed to guide budgeting decisions and align the school's operations with its overall strategic plan.
That knowledge beyond her department will help Bain as provost of the entire campus, Drale said.
The university anticipates a budget shortfall this year of more than $10 million, following a budget approved last year based on overly optimistic enrollment expectations.
Then-Chancellor Andrew Rogerson projected a 1% enrollment drop in fall 2018. It went down about 8%, with 9,627 students enrolled after several years with a student body well over 10,000. He resigned, and University of Arkansas System trustees hired Drale in September.
Drale said she expects to present a list of the first recommendations for budget cuts to trustees in November. The trustees meeting takes place Nov. 21 and 22 on UALR's campus.
Metro on 10/05/2019