Wichita State will soon get a new executive vice president and provost after Shirley Lefever retires in a few months. The individual who fills the role is in charge of several areas of campus, from academic leadership to enrollment to research.  

Three candidates are finalists for the position. Each visited the campus in recent weeks.

The search for a new provost

The university hired the search firm Isaacson, Miller to conduct the initial steps. A 16-person search committee interviewed eight semi-finalists before identifying the three final candidates.

Shelly Coleman-Martins, WSU’s vice president of Strategic Communications and marketing, said the committee will help ensure different voices on campus have a say in the result. 

“We want to know the opinions and voices of all the different groups on campus so that when the final decision is made, we hear all the different opinions,” Coleman-Martins said. “If you’re on the search committee, your job is to speak up and advocate for those that you represent.”

Coleman-Martins is the committee chair. Other members include college deans, staff and faculty members, members of the president’s executive team, and Student Body President Kylee Hower. 

Coleman-Martins said a final decision will likely be made by mid-November by Richard Muma, the university president.

Lefever will leave the university in December. Coleman-Martins said the university’s goal is for the next provost to start in January.

According to Lefever, the day-to-day work includes various meetings with deans and other administration. In these meetings, university leaders sometimes discuss academic trends or how they can best prepare for students. 

Leslie Durham 

At a forum with faculty and staff, Durham said she is inspired by the emphasis Wichita State has on both access and innovation. 

Durham is the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Boise State University.

“I’m impressed by your commitment to applied learning,” Durham said. “You want them (the students) to thrive here, and you want them to thrive after they’ve left here.” 

At Boise State, she served in various roles, including as an associate dean of arts and humanities, director of the School of the Arts and a professor of theatre history and dramaturgy for the Department of Theatre, Film and Creative Writing.

Durham has written articles as well as three books relating to theatre.

In her discussion, Durham mentioned her desire to have equality between disciplines in the colleges. She wants to close the gap often seen between the humanities and science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields. 

“It really frustrated me that the arts, humanities and social sciences didn’t have those same opportunities,” Durham said. “I’ve been working to be able to propagate some of the really good ideas that are coming from the STEM side over to the arts and humanities side.” 

Durham said that if she were to be hired as provost, she would want to continue the tradition of meeting with the Student Government Association to listen to its proposed issues. 

In her cover letter, she wrote that she “led an inclusive, consensus-based strategic planning process” inviting faculty and staff to work together to identify goals and strategies for the School of the Arts to close equity gaps for students, evenly distribute work between staff and faculty members, and obtain funding for research and other initiatives. 

Durham also wrote that she launched “Bronco Gap Year,” an initiative to help students navigate the best educational path. She also adapted the program to help students who already had credits but had to leave university come back and continue their degrees. 

She said that she started diversity and inclusion initiatives at Boise State and looks forward to furthering Wichita State’s Hispanic-Serving Initiatives.

James Gregory

At his WSU forum, Gregory said he is looking for opportunities to grow his leadership skills and use his talents to impact a broader community. 

He works as the dean of the College of Engineering at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University – Daytona Beach.

“I’m passionate about human flourishing,” Gregory said. “I really want to see the flourishing of faculty, staff, students and the whole academy together.” 

In his cover letter, Gregory wrote that he increased first-year retention in the College of Engineering by almost 10% in two years and helped establish a Boeing facility on his campus, creating jobs and internships. 

Gregory also discussed some of his plans if hired for the provost position, including building collaboration between students and the workforce.

He proposed building airlines between Wichita and states with high student traffic and then employing engineering students to offer them hands-on experience. 

“Building a partnership with, say, Allegiance or Southwest, both of which operate nonstop flights,” Gregory said. “We can ask ‘Can you come and leave your plane here for a little bit, and we’ll service it through our maintenance, repair, overhaul (MRO) facilities.’ … The university benefits because we can tap a population that would otherwise not be interested in coming to Wichita State.” 

He was previously chair of the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Ohio State University, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and director of the Aerospace Research Center.

Gregory said that he increased investments in research at Ohio State and helped grow the engineering department by more than 28% in three years.

Gregory wrote that he, “appointed the first-ever Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion committee in the college,” and piloted a program “to shape male students’ empathy, professionalism, and perceptions of gender equity in STEM disciplines.” 

Much of Gregory’s research centers around drones. He received the Frank G. Brewer Trophy for “significant contributions to aerospace education,” according to Embry-Riddle.

Monica Lounsbery

Lounsbery shared her interest in the role and possible goals for WSU. Lounsbery is the dean of the College of Health and Human Services at California State University, Long Beach.

She was previously an associate dean for Faculty Affairs in the School of Medicine at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She also served in vice and associate provost and department chair positions.

Lounsbery discussed the approach she would take in university leadership if she became WSU’s provost. 

“If we have a strategic plan, we can understand what we want, what we need to do and why, and we can think collectively about how to reengineer our structures, systems, procedures, practices to achieve goals,” she said. “For me, I really adopt a growth mindset.”

Lounsbery has published research centered around increasing physical activity in schools. 

In her cover letter, Lounsbery wrote that she made “strong investments in our research infrastructure” and helped increase new grants by five times for her university. 

Lounsbury wrote that she helped implement “affiliation groups, streamlined degree unit requirements, strengthened the connection between degree programs and career pathways, and improved communication, advising access, and basic needs support,” as well as establishing a peer mentoring program for students with Mental Health America, Los Angeles.

She also wrote that she helped partner with a local health care provider to create a clinic that served an educational role and offered health care to the patients.

Lounsbery praised WSU for its “comprehensive educational focus aligned with economic development and workforce demand” and for emphasizing partnerships with businesses.  

In particular, she cited the new Biomedical Campus. 

“We have to change health care in this country, and I think that the Biomedical Research Center can be an engine for that,” she said. More information about each of the candidates, including their cover letters, can be found here.