New Faculty Orientation

New Faculty Orientation

A Letter from the Provost:

Dear WCU Faculty Class of 2022,

 It is my pleasure to welcome you as a new member of West Chester University’s community of educators. As a new faculty member, you will play a critical role in the future developments of your department and the University as a whole. Therefore, we share a special interest in your future success at WCU. 

At West Chester University, our faculty and staff are dedicated to the future success of our students and to WCU’s mission to develop graduates to succeed personally and professionally and contribute to the common good. We are committed to ensuring an environment of trust, collaboration, equity-mindedness, compassion, grace and honesty as outlined in our Trusting Team Statement and hold these guiding principles as paramount to carrying out our mission: 

• Fostering student, team, and university success.
• Employing rigorous and systemic institutional planning and assessment to ensure continuous improvement.
• Providing honesty and transparency in communication and policies.
• Upholding our strong commitment to shared governance.

Part of assuring your success is making sure you get a good start as you begin your first year at the University. To assist in this process, we have developed a New Faculty Orientation program that starts in August (8/15 – 8/18) and continues with sessions throughout the academic year. The goals of this program include giving you an overview of the mission, values, and strategic goals of the University and providing you with information about what it takes to be successful at West Chester University. During the orientation program, you will have an opportunity to meet faculty and administrators in key leadership roles. In addition, you will meet other new faculty from the "Class of 2022" who will most likely have questions similar to yours about beginning this new experience. 

 The elements of the orientation program have been carefully designed and selected to provide you with critical information regarding both expectations of your appointment as well as benefits and resources available to you as a faculty member. Therefore, I strongly encourage you to structure your August schedule to attend all of the three-and-a-half-days of orientation sessions. 

 We begin the 2022-2023 academic year full of hope for a year free from many of the challenges we faced over the past two years and buoyed by the celebration of several key milestones from 2021-2022: 

• New Carnegie Designation of R2 Doctoral University with more than 25 doctoral degrees awarded and investments of more than $5 million in research and development.
• Launch of Moon Shot for Equity, an institutional commitment to student success through the elimination of equity gaps by 2030 by taking a comprehensive approach to remove institutional obstacles, foster equity-mindedness, and enhance existing support resources.
• Opening of our newest and largest academic building, the Science and Engineering Center and The Commons, a 175,000 square feet, LEED certified, state-of-the-art facility that will be home to WCU's Biomedical Engineering and Physics Departments, and the Departments of Health, Nursing, and Nutrition.
• Celebration of our 150th Sesquicentennial anniversary and launch of WCU's 150Forward Campaign that has already achieved nearly 80% toward our fundraising goal of $65 Million.

We look forward to creating new milestones with you!

Sincerely,

R. Lorraine Bernotsky, D. Phil
Executive Vice President and Provost