Kate Morris began her duties as Executive Vice Provost for Academic Affairs in June. Her portfolio includes curriculum and program development, the Teaching Engagement Program, UO Online, and the Career Center. She oversees faculty personnel actions such as tenure, promotion, performance reviews, post-tenure review, and sabbaticals. She will also focus on the training and development of faculty members and academic leaders. Kate also oversees the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art and the Museum of Natural and Cultural History.
She comes to Oregon from Santa Clara University in California, where she served as vice provost for academic affairs. She also served as acting provost and associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.
Kate is a professor of Art and Art History, with a Ph.D. from Columbia University. She was an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at Cornell University prior to joining the faculty of Santa Clara University.
Q. Welcome to Eugene and the University of Oregon. How was the move, and how was the transition to a new city, new state, and new university?
It was surprisingly smooth. My first full weekend here I attended a track meet at Hayward Field, went to the Farmers Market, and attended the No Kings Rally, and I figured that was the most Eugene Saturday one could have! I just really feel integrated into what’s great about Eugene.
Q. What are your impressions of the city and the region so far?
One of the things that really drew me here was the opportunity to explore the state of Oregon. I’m interested in natural and cultural history and Oregon is just so rich in that, and Eugene is so perfectly centrally located for going out in the spaces I want to be in. I want to learn all I can about Oregon’s rivers, preferably by floating them. I’ve gotten out to eastern Oregon to go looking for thunder eggs. I’ve biked all the way out to Clearwater Park a couple of times along the river, and I’m always looking for good dog-friendly swimming holes. For the first six weeks I was here, I was bike-only, so that is a great way to get to know a city.
Another thing that I have really enjoyed is just walking across Autzen Bridge during workdays – being able to have some of my meetings on campus be walking meetings is great. There’s so much that’s right here on campus, redwood trees and rare plants and access to the river. Every college campus has nice places to walk, but not like this. You can stand on Autzen Bridge and look at that river and think, I’m actually at work right now. You know, it’s just amazing.
Q. What would you like faculty members to know about your leadership style and your approach to supporting their scholarship, professional enrichment, and careers?
It sounds trite to say faculty are the beating heart of a university but that’s absolutely true. I’m interested in all aspects of faculty lives. In my position I want to acknowledge and support all the many contributions that faculty make to the university through their research, teaching, mentoring, and service. In the next couple of years here I especially want to work on enhancing classroom teaching — excellent, engaged, innovative, inclusive teaching.
My leadership style is, above all, engaged and collaborative. I approach my work collaboratively in the sense that my favorite meetings are whiteboard meetings, where many people are in a room thinking through a complex problem or issue. Thinking aloud with other engaged people is how we arrive at our best solutions and understanding of the direction we need to go collectively.
Q. What has your journey through academia looked like?
At my previous institution, I was a faculty member first and foremost. I had arrived as a pro-tem instructor. In the course of my time there, I became a tenure-track faculty member and moved through all of the evaluation and promotion processes all the way to full professor, so I understand life cycle of a faculty member, and the many, many competing interests and difficulties of prioritizing time.
But I also became a very engaged member of shared governance. In addition to serving in the Faculty Senate, I was chair of the Faculty Affairs Committee, which is very much about oversight of the evaluation and promotion processes. As vice provost I chaired the Academic Affairs Committee, and directed a wholesale reconsideration of the university’s core curriculum. And then when I was serving as acting Provost, I was on the receiving end of all those recommendations. Ultimately, I was responsible for ensuring the integrity of those processes.
All that to say, I'm very attuned to all the joys and challenges of faculty life, and collaborative governance.
Q. You are starting your tenure during a challenging time for the UO and for higher education in the United States. What are your thoughts on navigating a path forward?
To me, meaningful collaboration is when the end result, the path forward, has been influenced by the conversation and the process. The higher you get in leadership, the more important it is to engage in processes that move the work forward in a way that is authentic to the community. And that is how I work – I embrace collaboration that shapes the decision, shapes the direction. Given the state of our national moment, I think we have to double down on our support for faculty doing this work that is critical to and transformative for our society. We need to understand that educating our students is becoming an increasingly radical act. Every course, every paper published, every student who graduates, these are all radical acts, and more important now than ever. There has never been a time when it is so critical that we continue to do what we do and do it with passion. And that loops back to supporting the faculty, making sure the research knowledge production can happen, and amplifying that impact for the good of our society.
Q. You are an art historian specializing in Native American art. How did you get interested in that field of study?
I’m drawn to art because it is such an effective form of human communication. It can register on so many levels – intellectually, yes, but it can also get under your skin. I got interested in Native American art when I was in graduate school in New York City in the late 1990s. It was a time when Indigenous artists were engaging directly with the legacies of colonialism, and I was just so captivated by these contemporary works that were extraordinarily lyrical and beautiful, but also overtly political. If you want to see just how intense an Indigenous vision of the land can be, I highly recommend the James Lavadour exhibit at JSMA this fall!
— Tim Christie, Office of the Provost Communications