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Provost Updates: Associate Provost Applications, Mission Priority Examen,

Apr. 17, 2026

Dear Faculty Colleagues,

This week I attended the Center for Faculty Development’s signature event, “Faculty Thriving in This Season,” where Laurie Schreiner, Ph.D., presented research describing what faculty thriving looks like and the pathways for cultivating it. According to her research, faculty thrive when they experience meaningful engagement in their scholarship and teaching, feel that they belong at and are aligned with their institution, enjoy supportive relationships with colleagues, know that their work is recognized and valued by leadership, and have a deep sense that they are having a positive impact on students. She also described key pathways that lead to faculty thriving — an equitable environment, support for work-life integration, pay satisfaction and job security, and especially a culture of trust — a culture of trust in leadership (chairs, deans, provost, Faculty Senate, and committee leaders), trust in faculty, and trust among faculty colleagues. I am inspired by this research and advancing an academic environment that intentionally cultivates these conditions.   

Thank you to Heather Tarleton and the Center for Faculty Development team — Máire Ford, Margarita Ochoa, Ed Mosteig, and Myla Bui — for bringing a thoughtful speaker to campus and leading us into a deeper conversation on this important topic. I welcome the chance to participate in more conversations with the community about this and to be included in any effort to make faculty thriving a dearly held communal commitment at LMU. 

Call for Applications: Associate Provost for Academic Programs and Strategy
I want to begin by congratulating Vice Provost José Badenes on his appointment as Rector of the Jesuit Community at Loyola Marymount University, and by expressing my sincere gratitude for his eight years of dedicated leadership and service in the Provost’s Office. Father Badenes' contributions have strengthened our academic mission and enriched our community in lasting ways.  

With his transition, I am pleased to announce a call for applications for the position of Associate Provost for Academic Programs and Strategy, effective June 1, 2026. Reporting directly to the provost, this role provides comprehensive, strategic, and visionary leadership for academic programs encompassing undergraduate and graduate education, and leadership on innovative technologies such as artificial intelligence. The associate provost for Academic Programs also coordinates the development and implementation of all academic policies and procedures in alignment with strategic priorities and initiatives. This position will partner with deans, student affairs leadership, and other units of the university, ensuring opportunity and success for all phases of the student experience. 

This position is open to those who are tenured full professors at LMU.  I invite interested candidates to review the full position description and qualifications and to submit a curriculum vitae (maximum five pages) and a cover letter (maximum three pages) outlining their interest, qualifications, and vision for the role to Pam Thomas, Executive Assistant to the Provost’s Office, at Pam.Thomas@lmu.edu by April 30, 2026.

Mission Priority Examen/Strategic Plan Survey
LMU is engaging in the Mission Priority Examen (MPE), a reflective process that invites us to consider how we are living our mission as a Catholic university in the Jesuit and Marymount traditions. As part of the process, I invite you to participate in a brief survey that will inform both the MPE and the development of LMU’s next strategic plan. 

The survey asks you to reflect on the challenges facing higher education, the priorities that should guide LMU in the years ahead, and the ways our mission animates our teaching and learning, scholarship, service, and daily work. The survey deadline is Friday, April 24, 2026.  Your responses are anonymous and confidential. The survey is administered by Institutional Research and Decision Support, which will analyze responses and share only aggregated findings with university leadership. 

You are also invited to take part in one of the remaining MPE Listening Sessions (please RSVP):

The MPE process calls us to pause, listen deeply, and discern how LMU’s mission can guide us in responding to the needs of the present while leading us with hope toward the future. It is an exercise in collective, institutional discernment and as such depends on the participation of our whole community for its success. Faculty perspectives are essential to understanding how LMU’s mission is experienced across our community and how it might more fully shape our strategic institutional choices, structures, and commitments moving forward. 

State of Black LMU
I encourage you to participate in “The State of Black LMU: From BSI Designation to Institutional Transformation.” This campus‑wide convening comes at a pivotal institutional moment as we both celebrate our designation as a Black‑Serving Institution (BSI) and collectively inform how LMU can advance its commitments to equity, belonging, and servingness. The event will be held on Friday, May 1, 8:15 a.m. - 2:30 p.m., in the Roski Dining Hall in University Hall. Breakfast and lunch will be provided. The day will include facilitated conversation, table dialogue, and shared reflection across three core sessions: 1) The State of Black LMU — The Lived Experience; 2) Holding Hope While Naming Hard Truths; 3) Debrief with Accountability and Next Steps. Please RSVP by Monday, April 27. 

Upcoming Community Conversation
I started Community Conversations last spring as a venue for dialogue, collective problem-solving and input, and to strengthen relationships, understanding, and mutual care for one another in our common work together. We have had difficult and complex conversations this year. Still, I believe in the goodness and significance in gathering faculty, leadership, and the community. I can’t say enough how important your presence, perspective and contributions are to our collective academic aspirations.   

With this in mind, I invite you to come to our final Community Conversation on Tuesday, April 28 from 3:30 - 5 pm in the Life Science Building Auditorium. Along with updates from the Office of the Provost, the Faculty Senate President, and the Staff Senate President, we will have an in-depth discussion about our 2021-2026 Strategic Plan with John Parrish, Chief of Staff and Vice President for Institutional Strategy. The discussion will allow space for intentional reflection and learning from the success and challenges we experienced over the life of the current strategic plan and the spotlight initiatives it inspired. This conversation will also inform how we prepare for, develop, and implement  a new Strategic Plan for LMU. I hope you will attend and be part of this conversation. Please RSVP here. Light refreshments will be served after the event.  

Mission Integration Opportunities
The Office of Faculty Development and Engagement is pleased to announce opportunities for faculty research/creative practice and a faculty fellowship that further LMU’s mission and commitment to justice, equity and inclusion.

Call for Proposals: Mission Integration Grants
The Provost’s Office invites full-time faculty to apply for Mission Integration grants. Through research and creative practice, faculty animate the university’s commitments to knowledge, justice, and the education of the whole person. These internal grants are designed to invest in faculty scholarship and creative work as a core expression of faculty vocation and institutional purpose. These grants support projects whose topics, methods, and/or impacts center diverse communities of Los Angeles. They are intended to actualize LMU’s dedication to the cultures and communities of the Los Angeles region and to honor those in the university’s past and present who laid the foundations for the recognitions the university has earned for its service to minoritized communities, including as a Black-Serving Institution (BSI), an Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI), and Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander Serving-Institution (AANAPISI). 

Funding opportunities are available for the following areas:

  • Affirming the Black-Serving Institution (BSI) Designation of LMU in Los Angeles 
  • Affirming the Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) Designation of LMU in Los Angeles
  • Affirming the Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institutions (AANAPISI) Designation of LMU in Los Angeles
  • Engaging with the Lived LGBTQ+ Experience in Los Angeles
  • Advancing Disability Justice in Los Angeles
  • Engaging with Equity, Inclusion and Justice for International Communities in Los Angeles

Please see the Call for Proposal for details on supported project types and funding opportunities, criteria, stipend amounts, and proposal and submission instructions.  A faculty member may submit multiple project applications but can only receive one grant per annual award cycle.  Full-time faculty from any discipline are encouraged to apply.

Call for Applications: Faculty Fellow for Global Teaching and Learning
The Office of Faculty Development and Engagement (OFDE) invites applications for a two-year Faculty Fellow for Global Teaching and Learning. This fellow will play a key role in advancing the university’s commitment to globally engaged, inclusive, and mission-aligned education by supporting faculty in the design, implementation, and reflection on global learning experiences across the curriculum.  

This fellowship is designed for a faculty member with substantial experience in global learning and internationalized pedagogy, and with the ability to engage colleagues in thoughtful, courageous, and generative conversations about teaching, learning, and global responsibility. The fellow will support faculty in developing pedagogical practices that foster global citizenship, intercultural understanding, ethical engagement, sustainability, and social responsibility in the context of a Jesuit, Marymount university and build capacity for institutional coherence in global teaching and learning. The fellow will work in close partnership with the Center for Faculty Development and campus collaborators to strengthen globally focused teaching and learning initiatives. 

Please see the Call for Applications for details about the roles and responsibilities, stipend, time commitment, criteria for application, and submission instructions.  Full-time faculty are invited to apply. The fellow will retain their primary faculty appointment.

Congratulations to Heather Tarleton
I am pleased to announce that Heather Tarleton, Ph.D., associate provost for Faculty Excellence and Mission Integration, was recently chosen to participate in the two-year Lilly Network Leadership Institute, an exciting new initiative that brings together administrators new to their roles to explore the perspectives, practices, and principles that can prepare them to navigate successfully the day-to-day challenges and opportunities of leadership. Please join me in extending a warm and enthusiastic congratulations to Dr. Tarleton for her selection and recognition by the Lilly Network of Church Related Colleges and Universities, which seeks to strengthen the quality and shape the character of church-related institutions of higher learning through a variety of fellowships and regranting efforts.  

To all faculty, thank you for all that you do — your scholarship, your teaching, your mentorship, and your presence in this community — as we continue our shared work.

With appreciation,

Kathleen Weaver, Ph.D.
Executive Vice President and Provost
Professor of Biology