Dear Colleagues,
I am pleased to announce the 2022-2023 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Provost Fellows: Professor Meghan Burke from Special Education and Education Policy, Organization and Leadership, and Professor Chadly Stern from Psychology.
The Provost Fellows program was created to further develop leadership skills at the university level for some of our most accomplished tenured faculty. Each Provost Fellow focuses on a critical campus strategic initiative to ensure we are living up to our full potential in our scholarly missions. These initiatives are designed to further strengthen their individual interests and career goals.
Professor Burke will focus on identifying ways to support faculty members who pursue public and community engagement as part of their scholarship. Dr. Burke is an accomplished scholar whose work to support and enable families to become advocates and access services for individuals with disabilities has received acclaim on campus and in the community. Several noteworthy recognitions include being named a University Scholar (2020) and receiving the Larine Y. Cowan Make a Difference Award (2020), Alexis Wernsing Innovation Award (2020), and The Fire Award by the Illinois Developmental Therapy Association (2021). Dr. Burke serves as the principal investigator on several state and federally funded grants. Additionally, she has served on two different faculty senate committees and is currently the Vice-Chair of Campus IRB’s Social and Behavioral Sciences Committee. One of her many public engagement efforts includes Access Urbana-Champaign, which provides information about accessibility-friendly restaurants in the area.
Professor Stern will evaluate the impact of the General Education Program on students, with a focus on equity and access in General Education coursework. As a Provost Fellow, his work will center on the core courses that all undergraduate students are required to complete at Illinois and examine how they shape student achievement and success. Dr. Stern’s research broadly examines how belief systems and motivations guide the way that people perceive and interact with the world. Additionally, his work concerns how political belief systems shape the way in which people evaluate and categorize others based on group membership (e.g., race, gender, sexual orientation). He served as chair of the campus General Education Board (2020-2021) and was a member of the Grand Challenge Learning Steering Committee (2018-2019). Dr. Stern was elected as 2021 Fellow of the Society of Experimental Social Psychology and was a 2020-2021 Beckman Fellow.
Please join me in welcoming Professor Burke and Professor Stern to their new roles.
Sincerely,
William Bernhard
Interim Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Provost
