A Farewell Letter From Former Dean Todd Shields

Dear Fulbright College Family,

While we continue to set records in enrollment, external funding, student success, fundraising, inclusion, discovery, and creative work, it is time for me to leave and pursue a new path.

It has been an incredible honor to serve as your dean for nine years, but before I take my leave as dean, there are a few important things I need to share.

Namely, that the tremendous success of our college, the outstanding accomplishments made by our students, the breakthroughs our faculty have made in labs and classrooms, the awesome things our alumni do out in the world are because of YOU.

You – our Fulbright College family.

You have come together to create and grow the academic heart and soul of our university.

You have helped enrich countless lives by promoting discovery, and diversity and inclusion, by facilitating transformational experiences, and by fostering our mission of peace through education.

Because we in Fulbright College are leaders.

We are leaders in Student Success:

• Helping more than 7,100 undergraduate students and 860 graduate students with everything from academic advising to registration, from supplemental instruction to writing support, from tutoring and mentoring to academic coaching, and from career exploration to reaching commencement and beyond
• Creating the Fulbright College Student Success Center and related initiatives, including:
  • Leading the ongoing assessment and revision of the university’s core curriculum
  • Reducing “D, F, W” rates among Fulbright College core courses, and improving overall retention
  • Offering the Destination Arkansas Blackboard Assignment transition course to all first-year students after summer orientation
  • Creating the Strategies for Success course for all undergraduates – regardless of major or college – who fall into academic probation during their first fall semester
  • Bringing a focus on 11 research-proven High-Impact Educational Practices that support student success to our campus and leading annual conferences to explore and enhance these
  • Creating a 150-seat section of University Perspectives with Peer Mentors to ensure that first-year students can take a freshman seminar and connect with peer mentors and create community in smaller groups
  • Developing a Life Strategies and Career Awareness Course to improve overall student success, generate more internships, and foster greater career placement and success
  • Working with Fulbright College advisors to improve, expand and offer more options for student advising and mentoring services
  • Providing the university’s oldest and most distinguished Honors Program, with opportunities designed for students with the highest academic and artistic ambition

We are leaders in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion:

• Being one of the first colleges on campus to hire a full-time Director of Diversity and Inclusion
• Hosting Town Hall meetings to make sure our students, faculty, staff, alumni, and friends have a voice, can connect with us, and are being heard
• Creating individualized DEI Plans for each of the college’s three schools, 16 departments, and the Dean’s Office to fit their area’s unique needs and challenges
• Creating a new DEI Council, with 14 student, faculty and staff members who help identify, recommend, support, and advise the college on DEI issues and initiatives
• Offering workshops and trainings on topics like Facing Bias, Microaggressions, Increasing Cultural Competence, Stereotypes, and opportunities to become Safe Zone Allies
• Launching a new DEI Hour Conversation Series, which consists of safe, weekly open conversations for anyone connected to the college to join in and discuss the most pressing DEI topics of the day
• Launching dedicated college DEI Facebook and Instagram accounts, and a DEI blog to help celebrate and recognizing important cultural events, heritage celebrations, and provide resources
• Continuing to do the needed work to help make our college a more just, accountable, equitable, safe, and peaceful place for all – regardless of the intersections of race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality or other identities

We are leaders in Finance Administration, IT Services and Human Resources:

• Successfully reallocating over 3% of the college’s base budget, approximately $3.55 million, to university priorities, primarily to (1) create a Fulbright College Student Success Center, (2) foster greater diversity, equity, and inclusion, and (3) hire in strategic research areas such as data analytics, material science, and nanotechnology
• Reorganizing and expanding Fulbright College’s financial team into four core areas – budget and planning, research and gift accounting, business operations, and financial administration – to maximize support
  • This helped the college go from millions of dollars in the red to $1.6 million in one-time reserves in FY17 alone!
• And we’ve been fiscally sound and in the green since then
• Successfully navigating difficult cyber-attacks, while having the most sophisticated and responsive tech team overseeing more than 250 classrooms and over 900 faculty and staff
• Continuously addressing faculty and staff equity and compression issues across the college to improve morale and increase retention for more than 900 faculty and staff
• While also mentoring and developing the college’s senior leadership team – many of whom have moved on to key administrative and leadership positions across the university and at peer institutions
• Moving swiftly to hire the best faculty and instructors, especially in the face of record-breaking enrollment years

We are leaders in Development, Relationship-Building, Communications and Creative Services:

• Raising over $220 million for Fulbright College during the recently concluded U of A capital campaign, which was more than 284% of our goal! Not to mention an additional $90 million in technology gifts that do not contribute to our goal
  • And this included a transformative $120 million endowment to establish the first collegiate School of Art in the state of Arkansas, another $50 million for infrastructure, and multiple other seven-figure gifts
• Establishing and growing strong relationships and mutual partnerships with the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, and other major non-profits and businesses in Northwest Arkansas and far beyond
• Reviving the historic Fulbright REVIEW as a new digital publication, which features a continuously populating blog and monthly emails that go out to more than 35,000 of our alumni, friends, and constituents – that’s a larger circulation than many local newspapers!
• Growing our college’s presence in the U of A’s daily Arkansas News publication from about 100 stories per year to more than 550 stories annually
• Growing our social media presence and our website to serve not only our 8,700-plus current students, but also the countless prospective and future students who will call Fulbright College their home in years to come

We are leaders in Administration:

• Managing substantial student and faculty growth from 2009 to present
  • In 2009, Fulbright College generated approximately 290,000 student semester credit hours
  • In 2021, we generated over 365,000 student semester credit hours
  • By comparison, all other colleges generated approximately 371,000 combined semester credit hours in 2021!
• Fulbright College also grew from 298 tenure-track faculty in 2009 to 368 tenured and tenure-track faculty in 2021
• And from 134 non-tenure track faculty in 2009 to 312 in 2021
• Spearheading the creation of a new university-wide interdisciplinary undergraduate degree in Statistics and Data Analytics and a new interdisciplinary undergraduate degree that allows students to combine courses and minors from across the college
• Growing university-wide interdisciplinary graduate programs in Cell and Molecular Biology, Material Science Engineering, Public Policy, Nanotechnology, Statistics and Data Analytics, Space and Planetary Sciences, Environmental Dynamics, and at the University of Arkansas Rome Center
• Our college faculty currently direct six of these programs and the college has spent over $7.5 million since FY14 on these programs
• Growing the college’s online courses and programs from 278 sections in FY16 to 537 sections in FY22
• Steadily growing the college’s six-year graduation rate from 53.8% in the year 2006 to 66.8% in 2015
• Steadily growing our fall retention rate, which increased to 68.2% in 2020 versus 57.2% in 2016

So please, help me acknowledge the leaders of Fulbright College that I’m talking about.

Help me acknowledge our Associate Deans who epitomize the practice of transparent and honest servant leadership and maintain a people-first focus, which I know is the key to our college’s success.

Help me acknowledge our Chairs and Directors, who truly have the most difficult job on campus, but make more of a difference in the lives of the folks around them then they could ever know.

Help me acknowledge our Faculty and Staff, who are tireless in their dedication to our students and teach them the critical thinking skills they will need to thrive and make a positive impact on the world.

Help me acknowledge our Community Partners, Alumni, Donors, and Friends, who make all that we do possible through their incredible support, creating new possibilities that transform the college and the campus.

Help me acknowledge our new Interim Dean, Kathy Sloan, for taking the helm of Fulbright College. We’re in good hands for the college’s next chapter, and I can’t wait to see what you all will accomplish next.

And finally, help me acknowledge my amazing wife, Karen, my daughter Savvy, my son Dane, my parents and my in-laws. Your support has meant the world to me, been unwavering, and I would not be where or who I am today without you. I love you all!

Every person reading these words, regardless of your role or connection to Fulbright College, is essential to what we do each day to make this college and its community the incredibly special place that it is – to make it home.

And after spending more than 28 years on this campus, I definitely consider Fulbright College my home.

I am deeply honored that you allowed me to serve in a position where I was able to advocate for you, collaborate with you, and be your friend and colleague!

I am honored to have had a chance to serve such phenomenal people who continually surprise me by accomplishing so much – often with so little.

I am so appreciative of our incredible students and honored that our college has been home to more than 50 percent of all the U of A’s alumni who continue to grow, succeed, and strive to create the best possible future for us all.

Our Fulbright College family has helped me grow as we faced challenges together – some external, as the world seems to change faster than ever, and some internal, as we have learned how to support each other and overcome difficult situations.

You have locked shields with me so many times – and I deeply treasure our friendships and memories.

You have deeply blessed me – your support, your encouragement, your friendships – are all precious gifts for which I am profoundly grateful. I will never forget, and I will always keep you close to my heart.

Even though we must now take different paths, our relationships will not end.

We will always be united in our love for this beautiful State of Arkansas, our resolve for new discoveries, our commitment to creative work, and our dedication to fundamentally changing the lives of our students and their families for the better.

And I miss you already.

Thank you for being a vital part of our Fulbright College Family.

Thank you for your fantastic work, support, and passion for all you do.

Thank YOU for being our leaders, and never forget what we can accomplish working together!

Cheers!!!

Sincerely,

Todd Shields
Former Dean of Fulbright College

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