By SHANNON O. WELLS
As one might expect of the recent executive associate dean in the School of Computing and Information, Adam Lee believes strongly in the power of collecting and utilizing data to proactively address longstanding problems.
As the newly appointed vice provost for undergraduate studies, his broadened mission offers a golden opportunity to channel his background and passion to assist students who may otherwise get lost in the shuffle.
“From my perspective as an instructor, if the student is having trouble in my class, well, maybe it’s my class,” he observed. “But if you’re starting to see that the student’s having trouble in multiple classes, there could be something broader going on.
“For an individual faculty member to take action on this is hard,” he added, “so getting these inputs from as many people as possible so that our advising and success teams know how to do proactive outreach to students, at a time when we can course correct in the semester … I think is incredibly important.”
Lee said he’s working with Pitt’s data team to “get a sense of where we see areas that could be improved and we can try to increase that signal.”
Lee takes over the vice provost role from Joe McCarthy, who held the position before he was named interim provost last year and then provost last spring.
Gradually phased in from his SCI position to a full-time Office of the Provost appointment on Sept. 1, Lee is already pursuing his vision to influence student success by connecting myriad University resources and initiatives.
“I’m really excited about working with our associate deans and other folks to try to find pockets where we can really move the needle on that data collection, and take earlier steps to identify students who might be struggling for reasons that aren’t apparent in the classroom,” he said. “And try to come up with ways to help them truly thrive.”
His role also encompasses overseeing compliance with Pitt policies, state and federal regulations, and accreditation standards as they apply to undergraduate education; supporting deans, directors and campus presidents in their interactions with the provost’s office, and serving with the University’s academic leadership.
McCarthy said Lee will work with colleagues in the provost’s office and throughout the University “to advance the goals of Pitt’s strategic plan, with a particular focus on the strategies for advancing educational excellence.”
Building bridges
Lee, who holds a master’s and doctorate degrees in computer science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Cornell University, joined Pitt’s Department of Computer Science in fall 2008. His research interests focus on computer security, privacy and distributed systems fields.
Following encouragement from his department chair, Lee gradually expanded his horizons beyond research and classroom instruction time.
“I put my head down, did the research thing, enjoyed it (and) got tenure,” he said. “Then my department chair basically said, ‘Hey, the honeymoon is over. It’s time for more service. … We need you to get involved in some more activities in the department. We need a grad director, and I think you’d be great at it.’
“And so it’s like, ‘OK, I could do that, I guess,’ ” he recalled. “What’s involved?’”
Serving as director of graduate studies for computer science is a role he said he ended up enjoying “a lot more than I thought.”
“It was an opportunity to meet students outside of my lab and my collaborators’ labs, to look at the graduate-student experience a little bit more holistically,” as well as processes around graduate education, he said, “for places where maybe things didn’t work as well as I kind of hoped that they could work.”
That included rethinking graduate admissions, which led to revamping applications to include more holistic-review criteria.
“Our admissions pre-reqs were set up so that you essentially had to have an undergraduate degree in computer science to get into the program” at a time when computer science was becoming more interdisciplinary, he said. “So we (looked) at ways that we could maybe broaden that net a little bit and try to bring in students who had backgrounds in statistics or other related fields, but had some computing experience — and they could ultimately be successful in the program.”
That also led to bringing more women into the Ph.D. program. “So it was kind of exciting to think about how all of the different parts of the process work together: what students were trained in prior, what they wanted to do and how we could try to build the bridges between those two things.”
Around this time, former Chancellor Patrick Gallagher and former Provost Patricia Beeson engaged some campus groups to come up with a proposal for the creation of the School of Computing and Information.
“By virtue of being a graduate director, I had opinions on how we’d want to continue to support graduate students and ways that this might help us be better connected,” he said.
Onward and upward
Lee served on several planning subcommittees, eventually including the SCI dean search committee. “That was my first sort of high-profile search committee that I participated in on campus,” he said, calling it a “really great learning experience.”
His inquisitiveness during the process helped elevate Lee to an associate dean position.
“This is not something I had any intention of doing. I came here to do research,” he said. “I was excited about research. At the time, I was an associate professor, still worried about eventual promotion to full professor, and the impact that an administrative role would have on my research.”
The realization of “How many times am I gonna get asked to help build a school?” however, tipped the scales. “It was a pretty exciting opportunity, and I decided it was worth whatever risk there might be there to try to do it.”
Lee worked with John Twyning, associate dean in the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, and other faculty to consider new undergraduate programs that spanned SCI and the Dietrich.
“I got to work with then-Vice Provost McCarthy, as the undergraduate vice provost, to figure out how to go about doing them,” he said, learning how the University works “as sort of a large-scale socio-technical-political system, and trying to figure out ways that we can do really cool things for our students within the way the University operates. … It was a huge focus on undergraduate education.”
When the opportunity to apply for his current position came up, Lee saw it as an opportunity to “continue looking at what makes the University tick, looking for ways that we can reduce the friction that sits between students and their aspirations, and trying to grease the rails, to see all of the really, really cool things that our students do be made possible.
“So I applied,” he said, “and here I am.”
A man with a plan
Amanda Godley, vice provost for graduate studies, said she appreciated Lee’s “collaborative problem-solving approach” to University-wide issues from the get-go, when their paths started crossing at graduate associate deans’ meetings.
She praised his extensive knowledge of designing and administering online programs for working professionals, “from small, specialty programs like the master’s of library and information science, to large programs designed for a more general audience,” such as the new master’s of data science.
“Adam brings extensive experience in collaborating across schools in various ways, including creating innovative cross-disciplinary majors, new online programs and new policies and guidelines,” she said. “He is a creative, positive problem-solver and has the ability to bring people from various perspectives and backgrounds together to create a shared goal and vision.”
Amanda Brodish, associate vice provost for data analytics in the provost’s office, said Lee “has a keen desire to engage in data-informed decision-making to improve the student experience. He and I have had some exciting conversations about how to use data to encourage even more faculty involvement in supporting student-success initiatives.”
Lee said he’s excited about the strategic Plan for Pitt and other campus initiatives, which he called “potential huge wins in isolation, but if we’re able to sort of have synergistic successes, could be a grand slam.”
Beyond the long-range, complex goals and challenges, however, Lee simply thrives on the positivity he picks up in Oakland.
“There’s something about Pitt … people who are here really like it here and want to see us be successful. And finding those people and finding ways to activate that passion is a lot of fun,” he said.
“So I think we’re set up as an environment for a lot of success.”
Shannon O. Wells is a writer for the University Times. Reach him at shannonw@pitt.edu.
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