Neill
Former Southern Arkansas University nurse Denise Neill has been named UH-Victoria’s interim provost and vice president of academic affairs.
“I look forward to working more closely with UH-V faculty and administration as well as the UH System,” Neill said. “I think that having a UH-V administrative presence in the Greater Houston area will be positive.”
As provost, Neill will act as direct adviser to UH-V President Phil Castille on matters regarding academics, including planning, development and evaluation of programs. She will be a member of the president’s cabinet and the person to whom the deans of UH-V’s four member schools report.
“I have complete confidence in Dr. Neill,” Castille said. “She is thoroughly qualified to serve as provost. She has been a faculty leader for years. She is immediate past president of the UH-V faculty Senate and is UH-V’s most well-traveled faculty member.”
Neill has 18 years of experience teaching nursing, the last eight of which were at UH-V. In addition to her time on the faculty Senate, Neill was instrumental in the creation of the UH-V School of Nursing and the Master of Science in Nursing Program.
Neill will continue to teach in the Greater Houston area and regularly make visits to the UH-V campus.
“Neill has been an excellent nursing faculty member. Students like her style of teaching,” said Kathryn Tart, dean of the UH-V School of Nursing. She has secured internal and external grants and has served in numerous leadership positions in the School of Nursing, the university and professional nursing organizations. She was also selected as one of 2013-14 American Association of Colleges of Nursing in Academic Nursing Program Fellows.”
The former provost, Jeffery Cass, now holds a position as special assistant to the president and accreditation liaison. Together and working with other faculty members, Neill and Cass will be hard at work preparing the school for its upcoming accreditation review beginning April 6. This review is a normal process that must be completed every so often to prove the school is continuing to provide quality education. UH-V’s last review was in 2003.
Castille and UH-V had no comment to make on what will happen regarding the provost of academic affairs position in the future, saying that they were unable to speculate on a future search process.
