Dr. Bethany M. Usher, Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs, takes students to graveyards! She is a biological anthropologist studying cemeteries to learn about life and health in past communities. Surprisingly, the models she applies to pre-industrial villages have helped her understand and improve student communities in modern universities. As Provost, she strives to create transformative, inclusive educational experiences through innovative curriculum, engaging high-impact projects, and supportive advising. She is passionate about getting students to apply their classroom experiences to learn how exciting it is to tackle intellectual and societal challenges.
As Provost, she oversees the Academic Affairs programs and personnel at Radford University, a medium-sized public research university, including seven academic schools, a graduate school, and the libraries. Additionally, Academic Affairs supports student success through high-impact programs: the Honors College, Global Engagement, Undergraduate Research and Scholarship, Citizen Leaders, and the Highlander Success Center. We promote faculty excellence through a strong Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning, Research in Action, Sponsored Programs, and a variety of Centers and Labs.
Dr. Usher served George Mason University for 14 years, the last six as Associate Provost for Undergraduate Education. As Associate Provost, she led a redesign of the Undergraduate Education division to bring together the areas that support transformative learning for students, leveraging the strengths of the Research 1 environment. She encouraged the development of research-based multidisciplinary curricula, aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals, through Curriculum Impact Grants, transforming over half of the programs on campus. She oversaw enhancements of the Mason Core general education program to better include diverse and global perspectives, and to require applied scholarly projects in capstone courses. Through the university's second QEP, she supported the development of CECIL - the Office of Community Engagement and Civic Learning. Under her leadership, Mason created a new collaborative advising center, updated the University Studies program, and brought Fellowship into the portfolio.
She directed the Students as Scholars initiative through the Office of Student Scholarship, Creative Activities, and Research (OSCAR), and served as an Associate Director of the Center for Teaching and Faculty Excellence (CTFE) at Mason from 2010-2016 before being named Associate Provost.
Prior to joining Mason in 2010, she was faculty at the State University of New York at Potsdam, where she established the Center for Undergraduate Research and served as its Director. At SUNY Potsdam, she was a tenured Associate Professor of Biological Anthropology and chair of the Anthropology Department. She has a long history of collaborating with undergraduate researchers.
An impassioned advocate for the value of student scholarship and creative work, Dr. Usher currently serves as the Immediate Past President for the Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR). Within CUR, she has had many organizational roles, including serving on the Executive Board member, chairing the Undergraduate Research Program Division, and Co-chairing of the CUR National Meeting.