Three Essential Strategies to Future-Proof Innovative Programs
Recent headlines in higher education publications tell a dire story of prolonged and systemic...
Author Profile
Erin Webster Garrett | Associate Vice Provost of Relevant, Experiential and Applied Learning, Virginia Commonwealth University
Current Position and Past Experience
Erin Webster Garrett is currently Associate Vice Provost of Relevant, Experiential and Applied Learning at Virginia Commonwealth University. The first in her family to receive a PhD, Erin Webster Garrett has served at every faculty rank, from adjunct to tenured full professor of English. She has extensive experience as an academic administrator and leader responsible for building innovative teaching and learning programs at the university level, and has worked successfully across a spectrum of higher education institutions, including 17 years at Radford University, a regional comprehensive and former Normal school in rural southwest Virginia, where she served as a tenured faculty member of English and Director of the Scholar-Citizen Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP).
Since fall 2018, she has served in the provost office as the Assistant (now Associate) Vice Provost for Relevant, Experiential and Applied Learning at Virginia Commonwealth University, an urban serving R1 with a medical campus. From 2017-2018, Webster Garrett served as an American Council on Education (ACE) Faculty Fellow and Scholar in Residence at Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven, CT, where she had the opportunity to shadow President Jow Bertolino and to engage in dynamic training opportunities in public policy, advancement, enrollment management, and student success, among other areas. In addition, she has served on statewide commissions, advisory boards, and workforce development initiatives related to increasing student post graduation outcomes and social mobility.
Education, Honors and Achievements
Webster Garrett received a baccalaureate degree in English with a Spanish minor from the University of Richmond and a PhD in English and Literary Studies from the University of Denver, where she specialized in 18th and 19th century British women writers. In between, she received a Master of Arts in English with a specialization in South African literatures from Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). She has published and presented widely on the Shelley-Godwin coterie; however, her most recent scholarly contributions focus on strategies for scaling high impact practices as part of a holistic student success strategy that includes policy reform, strategic investment in technological tools, and integrated, intrusive advising. She has received multiple awards for her contributions to faculty development and teaching innovation, one of the most recent being a 2023 Program Expansion award from the VIP Consortium.
Personal Details and Community InvolvementAs part of her personal commitment to Covid recovery, Webster Garrett vowed to get out into the world, see and do more: she started with a 14 day learning tour in Nepal focused on UN sustainability goals and the critical importance of increasing access to education and literacy training for women and girls. This summer she is embarking on a different kind of excursion: hiking Hadrian’s wall with 5 colleagues. Both will inform ongoing writing projects, including her annual Herstory Celebration: a month of writing short pieces commemorating the extraordinary in the ordinary lives of women and the dynamics of female identity.
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Erin Webster Garrett is currently Associate Vice Provost of Relevant, Experiential and Applied Learning at Virginia Commonwealth University. The first in her family to receive a PhD, Erin Webster Garrett has served at every faculty rank, from adjunct to tenured full professor of English. She has extensive experience as an academic administrator and leader responsible for building innovative teaching and learning programs at the university level, and has worked successfully across a spectrum of higher education institutions, including 17 years at Radford University, a regional comprehensive and former Normal school in rural southwest Virginia, where she served as a tenured faculty member of English and Director of the Scholar-Citizen Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP).
Since fall 2018, she has served in the provost office as the Assistant (now Associate) Vice Provost for Relevant, Experiential and Applied Learning at Virginia Commonwealth University, an urban serving R1 with a medical campus. From 2017-2018, Webster Garrett served as an American Council on Education (ACE) Faculty Fellow and Scholar in Residence at Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven, CT, where she had the opportunity to shadow President Jow Bertolino and to engage in dynamic training opportunities in public policy, advancement, enrollment management, and student success, among other areas. In addition, she has served on statewide commissions, advisory boards, and workforce development initiatives related to increasing student post graduation outcomes and social mobility.
Education, Honors and Achievements
Webster Garrett received a baccalaureate degree in English with a Spanish minor from the University of Richmond and a PhD in English and Literary Studies from the University of Denver, where she specialized in 18th and 19th century British women writers. In between, she received a Master of Arts in English with a specialization in South African literatures from Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). She has published and presented widely on the Shelley-Godwin coterie; however, her most recent scholarly contributions focus on strategies for scaling high impact practices as part of a holistic student success strategy that includes policy reform, strategic investment in technological tools, and integrated, intrusive advising. She has received multiple awards for her contributions to faculty development and teaching innovation, one of the most recent being a 2023 Program Expansion award from the VIP Consortium.
Personal Details and Community InvolvementAs part of her personal commitment to Covid recovery, Webster Garrett vowed to get out into the world, see and do more: she started with a 14 day learning tour in Nepal focused on UN sustainability goals and the critical importance of increasing access to education and literacy training for women and girls. This summer she is embarking on a different kind of excursion: hiking Hadrian’s wall with 5 colleagues. Both will inform ongoing writing projects, including her annual Herstory Celebration: a month of writing short pieces commemorating the extraordinary in the ordinary lives of women and the dynamics of female identity.
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