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ATLANTA – Lynda Brown Wright has spent a lifetime pursuing change.
She was one of seven first African-American pupils in post-segregated Louisiana to desegregate her local junior high school. For more than 25 years she has been an advocate for faculty, helping institutions attract the best and brightest as well as diverse faculty and ensuring their career progression.
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Brown Wright is now the associate provost for faculty affairs at Georgia State University, focused on making sure those who teach students and perform world-impacting research thrive as the university grows. The major goal of the office is to attend to all matters relating to the full span of the career of faculty members at Georgia State.
“It’s very exciting to me to be a part of something that’s new and fresh, and to help see it come to fruition,” Brown Wright said.”
Brown Wright, who is also a tenured professor of counseling and psychological services, has provided department chair leadership and been an assistant provost for faculty affairs, among other administrative roles, at the University of Kentucky.
Georgia State is the most diverse university of its kind in the nation. It is ranked No. 5 in the country for the rate at which it graduates African-American students relative to other student populations. It is No. 1 among all public universities in the nations for the rate it graduates Hispanic students and No. 2 in the nation for its improvement of graduation rates for Hispanics.
“The students look like America,” Brown Wright said. “It’s wonderful to look at this university and realize, as we’ve been successful with our students, that we can institute focused initiatives that will help increase the quality and diversity of our faculty members.”
As an academic, she moved through the ranks and became an advocate for diversity, helping to foster the difficult conversations that lead to progress.
“I think we need to do a better job of having those conversations so that we can lay it out on the table. What are you afraid of? What are your thoughts about this? What are some of the issues you see? How can you be helpful to success,” Brown Wright said.
She’s also working to help faculty progress through the ranks and make sure they’re recognized for their work. Developing initiatives for succession planning is also important, as faculty members get called to become department chairs and associate deans or hold higher positions.
“If you understand how a university works, it helps the university to run so much better because then you have people in the departments among your peers who can let you know how funding works, and how the system works,” Brown Wright said. “Despite some of the challenges we’ll face with the goals we’re trying to achieve in this new office, I’m really excited to be at Georgia State and to be a part of this change to becoming a premier research university.”
Brown Wright oversees the Office of Faculty Affairs, responsible for helping faculty with matters regarding their careers, including faculty appointment, promotions, tenure, tenure reviews, faculty orientation and development, administration development, faculty database maintenance, faculty awards, appeals and grievances.
The office is embarking on a strategic plan that will develop initiatives to increase the quality of faculty, develop programs and initiatives to increase faculty diversity and streamline processes relating to faculty.
Feb. 11, 2013