 |
| Peter
W. Low |
University
provost to step down
By
Bob Brickhouse
Vice
President and Provost
Peter W. Low announced Sept. 8 that he will step down as the University's
chief academic officer at the end of June to return to teaching
law.
A
highly regarded legal scholar who has been a member of the faculty
since 1964, Low has served as provost since 1994, overseeing academic
and related programs in all of U.Va.'s schools except Medicine
and Nursing.
During
his term, the University has added numerous innovative courses,
launched an array of interdisciplinary efforts and teaching initiatives,
enjoyed a continued national reputation for the quality of its
faculty, acquired new support for the arts, developed programs
for adult learners, and established others that have put U.Va.
on the leading edge of the digital revolution in education.
"Peter Low will be hugely missed for his dedicated work as
one of the University's most skilled administrators," said
President John T. Casteen III. "With a great mind and heart,
he has handled countless complex issues with sensitivity and understanding."
Low,
the Hardy Cross Dillard Professor of Law and an authority on constitutional
law and civil rights, said that his years as provost have been
"extremely rewarding. I have been particularly fortunate
to have been associated with an extraordinary group of people
in the Provost's Office. I owe them more than I can say for their
loyalty and support over the years."
But "I am, and have been, primarily an academic, not an administrator,"
said Low, who will be 64 at the end of his current term. "If
I'm going to return to my academic career at the Law School, now
is the time to do it."
"He
is a true friend of the faculty," said Patricia Werhane,
chair of the Faculty Senate and the Ruffin Professor of Business
Ethics at the Darden School.
Low's
7 1/2 years as provost, including an original term that he agreed
to extend through the completion of U.Va.'s fund-raising campaign,
will have been longer than administrators traditionally serve
in that post. The University will begin a national search for
Low's successor this fall.
He
has played a key role in numerous University initiatives, many
of them far-reaching, including:
•
Presiding over the University's self-study for the Southern Association
of Colleges and Schools reaccredidation process.
•
Establishing the Program Review Process that grew out of the self-study.
This systematic review of academic departments assures the quality
of their curricula, teaching, research programs and services to
students.
•
Leading efforts to create the University's new adult degree program.
•
Building a team of vice provosts, who remain half-time as teachers
while handling specific responsibilities in the central academic
administration such as faculty recruitment and retention and international
activities.
•
Allocating funds to enlarge the Teaching Resource Center, to support
Faculty Senate grants to improve teaching, to retrofit classrooms
with new technology, to support the Desktop Computing Initiative
for faculty and staff in academic departments, and to provide
undergraduate students with funding for joint research projects
with faculty members.
•
Heading the University group that explored the possible establishment
of a branch campus in Qatar in the Middle East.
Low is an alumnus of Princeton University and a 1963 graduate
of the U.Va. law school.
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