New provost and VP academic affairs to begin July

Monday morning, Jacqueline S. Fetrow was announced as University of Richmond's next provost and vice president for academic affairs.

Fetrow will officially be moving into the position, currently held by Steve Allred, in July. Allred announced in October that he would be stepping down as provost at the end of this academic year.

"We are all committed to the Richmond Promise, and I am sure Dr. Fetrow will continue the work we've done to increase cross-school collaboration, provide opportunities for students to engage in research ... and ensure academic excellence across all five schools," Allred said. "She will bring her own ideas and vitality to the role of provost, and I am confident that I'm leaving the job in very good hands."

Fetrow has been the dean of Wake Forest University since 2009. There she oversees the liberal arts agenda of the university and promotes its focus on high-quality undergraduate teaching and research.

President Edward Ayers wrote in a campus-wide email Monday morning that Fetrow, "is deeply committed to Richmond's teacher-scholar model, faculty excellence, rigorous academic experience, engagement of students in research, and co-curricular opportunities that integrate academic life and student life."

Currently, Fetrow is also a professor of computational biophysics at Wake Forest, and she will serve as a professor of chemistry when she joins the Richmond faculty.

Prior to her time at Wake Forest, Fetrow was chief scientific officer and director of GeneFormatics, a biotechnology software company. She has also held positions in molecular biology at The Scripps Research Institute and in biological and biomedical sciences at University of Albany.

The provost search committee, headed by Jan Hoffman French, and composed of professors, administrators and trustees, recruited Fetrow after long hours of reviewing the credentials of potential candidates and conducting interviews. At the end of this process, the committee recommended a short list of candidates for Ayers to bring to campus to meet with members of the Richmond community, French said.

"Dr. Fetrow demonstrated to me a warm professionalism and forthrightness, which when combined with her enormous intelligence and clear desire to understand and learn all about our community, certainly provide me and the search committee with a sense of confidence in her as a colleague and an academic leader," French said.

Contact staff writer Brooke Harty at brooke.harty@richmond.edu