EUGENE, Ore. -- (Oct. 21, 2013) – This fall, 40 new tenure-track faculty members began their roles in University of Oregon classrooms and research facilities. The new faculty hires are in schools and colleges across campus, and represent an increase from the number of tenure-track faculty in the previous fiscal year.
“We are fortunate to have a breadth of expertise coming to the University of Oregon from our recent hires,” said Scott Coltrane, interim senior vice president and provost. “Our new tenure-track faculty show exceptional promise as researchers and are already fantastic teachers. We are able to attract the very best scholars and scientists to UO because of our longstanding commitment to excellence.”
One new professor is Leslie Leve, professor in the College of Education’s Counseling Psychology and Human Services department, who shared her early impressions on campus in a video. Leve’s teaching and research focuses on developmental pathways and intervention outcomes for at-risk youth and families, particularly females. She also works with the UO’s Prevention Science Institute.
As a new faculty member, she looks forward to opportunities for interdisciplinary research with colleagues across campus.
“It's really exciting to be around such stellar colleagues,” said Leve. “For example when I'm studying kids who were adopted or kids who were in foster care and look at their adjustment over time and how they're doing socially, I can also now partner with people who understand the neurobiology of development and who use the fMRI equipment here to look at their brain functioning while I'm looking at some of their social and developmental outcomes.”
“One thing that I really have felt at the campus coming back as a faculty member is how committed the university is to wanting everyone who is new here to succeed, whether you're a new student and orienting you to the services available, or if you're a new faculty member like me.”
C.J. Pascoe, a new assistant professor of sociology, is enjoying getting to know the community while teaching an upper division course about sex and society in her first term at the UO. Pascoe is a member of the board of experts for Lady Gaga's Born This Way Foundation and researches gender and sexuality.
“I've absolutely fallen in love with Eugene, as has my family,” said Pascoe. “We have also had a blast discovering all the great places to eat, bike paths, hiking trails and the most abundant blackberry bushes.”
This year’s faculty hiring is the result of several years of recruitment and hiring processes to attract high-quality faculty to the UO. The UO has experienced significant student growth in recent years, and faculty hiring is a priority to increase the number of tenure-track faculty correlated to the size of the student population.
About the University of Oregon
The University of Oregon is among the 108 institutions chosen from 4,633 U.S. universities for top-tier designation of "Very High Research Activity" in the 2010 Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. The UO also is one of two Pacific Northwest members of the Association of American Universities.
MEDIA CONTACT: Julie Brown, UO communications, 541-346-3185, julbrown@uoregon.edu
Note: The University of Oregon is equipped with an on-campus television studio with a point-of-origin Vyvx connection, which provides broadcast-quality video to networks worldwide via fiber optic network. In addition, there is video access to satellite uplink, and audio access to an ISDN codec for broadcast-quality radio interviews.
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