RU names Interim Assistant Vice Provost for High Impact Practices

Jeanne Mekolichick, current chair of the Radford University Department of Sociology and Interim Director of the International Education Center, has been named Interim Assistant Vice Provost for High Impact Practices.

Mekolichick will be responsible for leading and managing RU's various high-impact practice initiatives such as the Scholar-Citizen Initiative, Honors Program, Office of Undergraduate Research and Scholarship and International Education Center (IEC). Additional high impact practice initiatives will be added to her portfolio as they are developed.

She will begin her new role Aug. 10 and her duties as Interim Director of the IEC will end Aug. 9. She will also relinquish her duties as chair of the Department of Sociology.

"When you ask a college graduate what their most meaningful learning activity was, most describe some type of high-impact experience such as study abroad, a leadership role they held or time in a professor's lab or studio," said RU Provost Sam Minner. "Here at RU, we want to build on the wonderful traditions we have to make those experiences even more powerful and engage even more students in them. Dr. Mekolichick is a great choice to make that happen."

Mekolichick was recently elected chair of the Social Science Division of the Council on Undergraduate Research, a professional organization focused on providing undergraduate research opportunities for faculty and students at institutions serving undergraduate students. According to Minner, her election to the prestigious post affirms the high value RU accords to undergraduate research on the experience of its students.

The director of RU's Interdisciplinary Studies in Liberal Arts program and its Center for Social and Cultural Research, Mekolichick earned her Ph.D. in sociology from Kent State University and is a 2013 graduate of the Harvard University Graduate School of Education Management Development Program.