Provost Office

Assumption is blessed to have a wealth of talented and dedicated faculty who are united in their commitment to the development of academic excellence in our students and our University. Creating opportunities for faculty to exercise their diverse gifts and abilities effectively on this front is crucial to the success of the University. To this end, the AU Provost Fellows Program invites qualified, tenured and tenure-tracked faculty to make meaningful contributions to the academic excellence of our university by working with the Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs & Provost’s Office on targeted, strategic initiatives. Faculty involved in the Provost Fellows Program gain experience on the administrative level as they work with senior university officers and departments to achieve the mission-oriented academic goals of Assumption University.

Provost Fellows Responsibilities 

Provost Fellows partner with senior administration on initiatives and projects that are vital to Assumption University’s academic and educational success.  As a Provost Fellow, a tenured faculty member will work on academic initiatives that encompass and span the educational life of the University, implement mission-critical strategic initiatives, learn about budget planning and management, and hone their personal leadership and collaborative skills.

Provost Fellows will receive appropriate release time (course reductions fitting the particular initiative they are working on) and administrative resources as they continue to carry out their primary faculty responsibilities as teachers and researchers. Fellows will meet with the senior administrator directing their project on a biweekly basis and take part in developmental programs specifically designed for Provost Fellows.  Depending on the assigned initiative, a Provost Fellow’s post may run for either a single semester or extend over a full academic year.

2025-2026 Provost Fellows

Professor Michael Matraia will serve as the Foundations Provost Fellow for the 2025-206 academic year. Reporting directly to the Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs & Provost and working in close collaboration with the Dean of the D’Amour College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, he will advance and execute substantial, innovative initiatives that infuse the Foundations Program throughout the University’s various schools and college.

Professor Michele Lemons will serve as the Graduate Studies Provost Fellow for the 2025-2026 academic year. Co-leading the Growing Grad Implementation team with the Dean of the School of Graduate Studies, she will help guide and administer the University’s newly implemented process for soliciting and evaluating new graduate-level programs and professional education opportunities.

Professor Geoffrey Vaughan will serve as the Educational Mission Provost Fellow for the 2025-2026 academic year. Reporting directly to the Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs & Provost, he will collaborate with each divisional Vice President to develop workshops, systems and processes, and programing opportunities that ensure that our shared, common educational mission further comes to life and is embodied in each division and office at Assumption.

Professor Angela Kaufman-Parks will serve as the Culture & Community Provost Fellow for the 2025-2026 academic year. Reporting jointly to the Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs & Provost and to the General Counsel & Vice President for Strategy, she will help develop systems, processes, and structures that coordinate and institutionalize the University’s commitment to educate, provide resources, and ensure compliance with Title IX, the Americans with Disabilities Act, academic freedom, and academic integrity at Assumption.

About the Provost Fellows

Foundations Provost Fellow
Providing all undergraduates with a rich and common introduction to the breadth and depth of Catholic liberal education, the Foundations Program is—and will continue to be—the signature undergraduate, academic program at Assumption University. Infusing the distinctive aims and ends of this program across the entire landscape of Assumption’s undergraduate programs lies at the heart of AU Thrive. Reporting directly to the Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs & Provost and working in close collaboration with the Dean of the D’Amour College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, this Provost Fellow will help advance and execute substantial, innovative initiatives—e.g., developing learning communities configured around the aims and ends of the Foundation Program and facilitating Foundations-related curricular development—that infuse the Foundations Program throughout the Universities various schools, bringing the program to life beyond its curricular requirements and unifying the essential educational aims that mark an Assumption education.
Duration: Full Academic Year.

Graduate Studies Provost Fellow
The significant and sustained expansion of Assumption’s graduate student enrollments is a crucial objective of AU Thrive. Such strategic growth will require the careful identification, development, and implementation of a catalogue of new graduate programs that clearly align with the University’s educational mission. The Graduate Studies Provost Fellow will be responsible for refining the process for soliciting and evaluating ideas for new graduate-level programs and professional education opportunities by co-leading the Growing Grad Implementation Team with the Dean of the School of Graduate Studies.
Duration of fellowship: Full Academic Year.

Educational Mission Provost Fellow
Vision I of Thrive calls on us, as a community dedicated to a common purpose, to promulgate and embody our Assumptionist educational mission recognizably throughout our university. Reporting directly to the Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs & Provost, this Provost Fellow will collaborate with each divisional Vice President to develop workshops, systems and processes, and programing opportunities that ensure that that our shared, common educational mission further comes to life and is embodied in distinctive, identifiable ways in each division and office at Assumption.
Duration of fellowship: Full Academic Year.

Culture & Community Provost Fellow
Thrive charges us to embody and implement the University’s commitments to “a holistic, collaborative, and innovative approach to mental health and wellbeing that involves all divisions (Vision II)” in concert with federal and state regulations and to cultivate an academic culture that encourages and “equips students to pursue the truth for its own sake (Vision I).” Reporting jointly to the Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs & Provost and to the General Counsel & Vice President for Strategy, this Provost Fellow will help develop and execute systems and processes that further the University’s commitment to educate, provide resources, and ensure compliance with Title IX, the Americans with Disabilities Act, academic freedom and academic integrity policies, and Assumption’s established community standards/judicial affairs.
Duration of Fellowship: Full Academic Year.

Nomination and Selection Process
Qualifications: Applicants must be tenured or tenure-tracked faculty members. Prior leadership experience is preferred but not required.

Nominations: A request for nominations for specific Provost Fellow posts is circulated to Deans and Vice Presidents. Deans and Vice Presidents can nominate faculty members by sending a brief description of their qualifications and curriculum vitae to the Office of the Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs & Provost (provoffice@assumption.edu). This office will solicit additional required information from the candidate.

Faculty members also can self-nominate for a particular Provost Fellow post. Self-nominations should include a two-page statement summarizing specific academic/administrative interests and professional goals, as well as a current curriculum vita. Materials should be sent to (provoffice@assumption.edu). The Office of the Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs & Provost will solicit endorsement of the nomination from the nominee’s Dean.

Academic Year 2026-2027 Application Dates: More information available soon

Proudly sponsored by the Provost’s Office, The Disputed Questions Forum provides a venue for contested intellectual, moral, and spiritual questions to be discussed and debated in a way that honors the distinctive dignity of the human person. Animated by the belief that each person is created in the image of a God who is both logos and love, this forum is based on a simple premise: the highest compliment you can pay a being who is endowed with logos (reason) is to take his or her thoughts, ideas, and reasoned arguments seriously.

This Forum takes its name from an impressive academic exercise that characteristically marked the internal life of medieval Catholic universities.  Regularly, a magister (master) would stand up before the entire university, set forth a brief opening lecture on a controversial topic, and respond to objections and counter arguments proffered by other masters, bachelors, and students.

The Forum brings the entire Assumption community together to listen to—not just hear—diverse thinkers debate timely all-too-human questions and concerns.  Today, most universities reflexively blink when confronted with the opportunity to discuss hotly debated contemporary concerns in a respectful, civil, and serious way.  We are fortunate to be members of an ennobling educational community that can—and does—do this with intellectual courage, intellectual generosity, and intellectual humility.  

At Assumption, this is what genuine civil discourse looks like.  The Disputed Questions Forum furthers such truly humanizing conversations among the company of friends. View recent Disputed Questions Forum- “Should Tenure Be Retired?“, “Academic Freedom: Fact or Useful Fiction?“, “Dobbs and Democracy in America“, and “Reflection & Judgement: Israel-Hamas War“

Conversations with AU Authors February 26, 2025
Wednesday, February 26, 2025, Curtis Performance Hall, 5:00pm

Discussant: Dr. Bernard J. Dobski, Professor, Department of Political Science 
Moderator: Dr. Christopher J Gilbert,  Associate Professor, Department of English
Book title: Mark Twain’s Joan of Arc, Political Wisdom, Divine Justice, and the Origins of Modernity.

Sponsored by the Assumption University Office of the Provost.

Conversations with AU Authors: October 23, 2024
Wednesday, October 23, 2024, Curtis Performance Hall, 5:00 PM

Discussant: Dr. Samantha Goldman, Department of Education
Moderator:  Dr. John Bell, Department of History
Book title: Exploring Special Education Advocacy in the United States and Abroad

Sponsored by the Assumption University Office of the Provost.

Conversations with AU Authors: March 14, 2024
Thursday, March 14, 2024, Curtis Performance Hall, 5:00 PM

Discussant: Toby Norris, Ph.D., Department of Art and Music
Book title: Marginal to Mainstream: French Modernism Between the Wars

Sponsored by the Assumption University Office of the Provost.

Conversations with AU Authors: November 29, 2023
Wednesday, November, 29, 2023, Curtis Performance Hall, 5:00 PM

Discussant: Steven Theroux, Ph.D., Department of Biological and Physical Sciences
Book title: A Most Improbable Story: the Evolution of the Universe, Life, and Humankind

Rabbi Joseph Klein Lecture

Assumption University Snow Day Policy  

1. Over the course of one semester, the University officially will cancel scheduled, in-person classes for snow days for up to one week of a course’s regularly scheduled class meetings (e.g., three MWF classes or two TR classes or one once-a-week course’s class). 
2. All courses regularly scheduled to meet exclusively on-line, e.g., a graduate course, will continue to meet online regardless of our Worcester campus being closed for a declared snow day.  
3. If winter weather necessitates the closing of campus for more days than stipulated in point #1, instructors will hold affected classes online.   

Official campus closings due to snow days will be posted on the University’s website and announced by the University via text and phone message.