Dr. Wade Shaffer has been named the new provost/vice president of Academic Affairs at WTAMU pending consent of the Texas A&M University System Board of Regents.
Shaffer has served as the interim provost/vice president of Academic Affairs since Dr. James Hallmark left the post to accept the position as Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs of the TAMU System in March of last year.
“I am extremely pleased with the leadership that Dr. Shaffer is providing to the Division of Academic Affairs, especially in the areas of faculty development, curriculum development, student retention, and student learning assessment,” Dr. J. Patrick O’Brien, president of WT, said. “Dr. Shaffer also works very well with the faculty, with the deans, and with the other members of the President’s Council.”
Shaffer’s responsibilities in this position include providing administrative leadership to all academic areas, overseeing the budget for academic affairs and representing the school at the local, state and national level. He must also provide strategic planning for the direction of academic affairs and the educational mission of the University.
“I am responsible for monitoring and improving the quality of the academic programs on campus,” Shaffer said. “I work closely with the President and with the Academic Deans to do this. My goal is to provide the best educational experience possible for WTAMU students. I am in the Office of Academic Affairs, which is responsible for oversight of the six colleges on campus, the library, the Honors Program, Study Abroad, Nationally Competitive Scholarships, Advising Services, the First Year Experience and the Amarillo Center. Basically anything that deals with an academic issue. Classes, degree plans, graduation, and even professors are handled in Academic Affairs.”
The appointment of Dr. Shaffer to this position was met with positive feedback from faculty who said Shaffer has done a fine job in the interim position, and appointing him to the official position is the best step for the University to take.
“Dr. Shaffer is one of those administrators who is gentle and professional,” Dr. Stephen Bogener, Assistant Professor of History, said. “He addresses your questions in a forthright way and does not lose touch with what it was like to be in the classroom.”
Shaffer joined the faculty in 1994 as an assistant professor of History and has played many roles in his time here. He was named the head of the Department of History, Political Science, and Criminal Justice in the College of Education and Social Science in 2001. The department was renamed the Department of History and Geography, and was then moved to the Sybil B. Harrington College of Fine Arts and Humanities, of which Shaffer was named associate dean in 2008. In 2010, Shaffer was appointed to the position of Associate Provost for Academic Affairs, and then became interim Provost two years later.
Shaffer earned a bachelor’s degree in history in 1985, and then earned his Master’s in 1987 from the University of Texas at Arlington. He then went on to earn his doctoral degree in American History in 1993 from the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va. Shaffer served as a visiting assistant professor there before coming to WT in 1994. While on faculty here, he has received many teaching awards and was a nominee for the Carnegie Foundation’s U.S. Professor of the Year in 2004.
The TAMU System Board of Regents will review Shaffer’s qualifications and performance in May of this year in order for them to grant their approval of his appointment as Provost/Vice President of Academic Affairs.
