Susan Walsh

The Provost & Vice President for Academic and Student Affairs plays a leading role in sustaining an environment of academic excellence and student success at Southern Oregon University. With a strategic focus on access for all students, the Provost works collaboratively with all other divisions (Finance and Administration, University Advancement, and Equity, Diversity and Inclusion) to facilitate organizational success across the campus. Those of us who serve in Academic and Student Affairs represent a broad array of activities and functions in support of the academic mission of the university, and take very seriously our commitment to excellence in undergraduate and graduate education, and co-curricular support and student services.

Susan Walsh, Ph.D., is Provost and Vice President for Academic and Student Affairs, and Professor of Communication at Southern Oregon University. She earned her doctoral degree in Communication and Society from the University of Oregon. Dr. Walsh serves on the Oregon Statewide Provosts Council and the Southern Oregon Success (SORS) Key Leaders Council. She is actively involved in the southern Oregon region, with memberships on the boards of Southern Oregon Regional Economic Development, Inc. (SOREDI) and the Ashland Chamber of Commerce, and is the immediate past Chair of Southern Oregon PBS (SOPBS).

Dr. Walsh taught for 25 years in SOU’s Department of Communication. Her teaching and research interests are focused, in general, on interpersonal communication in a variety of relational contexts and, more specifically, on the social construction of race and gender within various forms of human and electronic communication.

For the past four years, Provost Walsh has shepherded a new innovative and transformative general education curriculum through the campus approval processes. In Fall 2023, SOU launches our new GE program for incoming students.

The goals of this remodeling effort include:

• Applying the university’s Strategic Plan more intentionally to our GE curriculum design;
• Reducing overall GE credit requirements;
• Making GE learning goals and requirements more transparent, purposeful, and attractive to students. SOU’s new model shifts from a discipline-based distribution of requirements (e.g. required credits in Humanities, Social Sciences, Natural Sciences, etc.) to a program centered on six skill-based capacities:

PURPOSEFUL LEARNING is both a capacity and the lens through which SOU students develop their other core capacities. In applying this lens to their university experience, students make meta-cognitive connections between their education and their broader, individually defined goals. By centering Purposeful Learning across the curriculum, SOU’s new GE program offers our students a practical approach to self-reflection, connection with others, and adaptation of cross-disciplinary skills to an ever-changing world.

COMMUNICATION & EXPRESSION prepares students to identify, develop, and express ideas with specific audiences in mind and to receive and appreciate others’ ideas.

CREATIVITY & INNOVATION prepares students to understand and engage in the creative process and to discover and implement original and useful approaches to projects and/or complex problems within any context or discipline.

EQUITY, DIVERSITY & INCLUSION prepares students to engage in a lifelong, intentional, and continuous process of learning culturally affirming ways of being, interacting, and behaving that contribute to equitable living outcomes in both global and local communities.

INQUIRY & ANALYSIS prepares students to ask meaningful questions and gather, analyze, evaluate, and synthesize information. They can also articulate how the process by which information is understood, consumed, and produced contributes to an understanding of the world and shapes decisions, conclusions, and actions.

NUMERICAL LITERACY prepares students to reason well and solve quantitative problems situated within a variety of disciplinary and interdisciplinary contexts. Students learn to ask quantitative questions about their world, identify appropriate methods to interpret data, and clearly communicate their results in a variety of formats.

We look forward to feedback from students about this new and exciting curriculum.