Dear Colleagues,
I am pleased to announce that I have appointed Wayne Jones Jr. as provost and vice president for academic affairs effective Nov. 19. After three months of working with Wayne in the interim role, it became clear to me that we already had the best candidate. His experience and expertise are comparable to the provosts I have met from the best universities in the country. Wayne was selected to serve as the dean of the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences (CEPS) through a national search just a year and a half ago, at which time he impressed the search committee as a leader UNH would be fortunate to recruit.
I assure you this process, appointing a senior administrator without a search, is not the new norm. It is because of Wayne’s exceptional caliber that I am able to bring stability in senior leadership and not delay moving forward as a university while we do a search. I did not make this decision alone. I received counsel from the Faculty Senate, the undergraduate Student Senate, the Graduate Student Senate, the Deans' Council, the USNH board of trustees and our Office of Community, Equity and Diversity. The feedback was unanimously positive on the question of appointing Wayne as provost. Wayne has displayed his commitment to community engagement and to fostering diversity and inclusion among UNH’s students, faculty and staff, and he will continue to bring these core values to bear in his work as provost.
As dean of CEPS, he successfully focused on student success, graduate education and growing industrial partnerships to support applied and fundamental research. Prior to joining UNH, he was professor and chair in the department of chemistry at Binghamton University where he served in numerous leadership roles including founding director of the Center for Learning and Teaching. He has authored more than 150 publications and articles, holds six patents and his work has been supported by more than $14 million in federal research grants. In addition, he co-founded a startup company producing optical nanomaterials patented from his university research lab.
Please join me in congratulating Provost Jones.
James W. Dean Jr.
UNH President
