Our Colleague Kathi Kern

Colleagues,

This afternoon, I have the bittersweet task of informing you that Dr. Kathi Kern has let me know of her intention to leave the Provost’s office and return to the faculty in the College of Arts and Sciences later this spring.

For several years, Kathi has led campus efforts around our online learning strategy as well as faculty development and training through the Center for Enhancement of Learning and Teaching (CELT). She has led in both of these strategically pivotal spaces with intellect and skill as well as a sense of vision and, as always, keen humor and optimism.

As tough as it is to see her move on, I know teaching remains her first love and the College of Arts and Sciences and its students will be the undeniable beneficiary of this move. Many across our campus know that Kathi is a master teacher, with more than a generation of UK students looking to her for mentorship.

Consider the fact that Kathi has won the Chancellor/Provost’s Award for Outstanding Teaching, the Alumni Great Teacher Award and the College of Education’s “Teachers Who Made a Difference Award” – a trifecta of honors that demonstrate how her fellow faculty, students and other stakeholders recognize her excellence in the classroom and deep commitment to students. She also spent a year as a visiting scholar at Princeton.

She took those skills – and insatiable sense of curiosity about how to do things better in her chosen profession – to the Provost’s office.

Kathi was the inaugural director of CELT, where she has spent more than a decade establishing and building out an innovative teaching and learning support unit, utilized by faculty across the campus. It also has been central to our efforts to cultivate a robust teaching community across disciplines.

One example, among many, of innovative approaches to teaching and learning is the effort in 2015 that Dr. Kern and her team initiated with conversations and inquiry around race and teaching. Those conversations continue to this day as programs centered on diversity, equity, and inclusion in the learning environment.

Similarly, Dr. Kern’s leadership of the UK Online initiative has led to the expansion of the university’s online footprint with high-quality, innovative, faculty-driven online programs launched at an unprecedented rate during COVID-19, from 37 to 87 programs since 2018.

In collaboration with the University Senate and faculty across the institution, Kathi and her team supported both new and established online programs to increase UK’s online enrollments and expand access to the benefits of a UK education to learners both near and far.

Nowhere has this combination of skills and effort been more invaluable than in helping navigate through a global pandemic. In March 2020, Kathi and her teams provided seamless and strong support for faculty and instructors as UK shifted all classes to a remote format in less than two weeks.

During this time, demand for instructional support surged like never before, and Dr. Kern led her teams as well as the institution’s academic course delivery workstream to maintain and, ultimately, strengthen the UK’s ability to fulfill its critical teaching mission for the Commonwealth and beyond.

Not surprisingly, Kathi has graciously accepted my request that she stay on in the Provost’s office for a time during the spring semester to help work through this transition period.

We will create a senior-level position to focus solely on online learning as we need to take the strong foundation that Kathi has helped build through COVID-19 and accelerate and expand our efforts. That will involve a national search. I will also appoint an acting director for a period of time as that search will likely take a number  of months. Finally, I will ask the Office for Faculty Advancement to oversee the important work being done in CELT.

But there will be ample time for transitions. Today, I know you all join me in celebrating Kathi’s significant accomplishments and steadfast devotion to this intellectual community, our faculty and the students who we are called to serve.

Thank you, Kathi.

Robert S. DiPaola