The spring 2022 semester is in full swing and Roger Williams University President Ioannis Miaoulis addressed RWU in a letter to provide an update on the happenings on campus.

Many new faculty members join the RWU community this semester. The Advancement team had several new hires, including Kate Brezina as Associate Vice President of Leadership and Planned Giving, Chris Sienko as Assistant Vice President of Corporate Relations and Business Development, and Matt DeVecchi as Assistant Vice President of Advancement for RWU Law.

The financial aid team gains Susan Scorpio in the role of Financial Aid Assistant II. Richard Godfrey joins RWU as the first Executive Director of the Real Estate Program. Matt Kite starts this semester as the University College Assistant Dean, and Gökhan Çelik and Anne Proctor were appointed as Associate Dean of School of Engineering, Computing and Construction Management (SECCM) and School of Humanities, Arts and Education (SHAE) respectively.

Babette Allina fills the newly created position of Director of Strategic Initiatives. Miaoulis wrote in his newsletter that she will work with Chief of Staff Brian Williams on “overall project management and campus support of our strategic planning efforts.”

In terms of Strategic Planning, Miaoulis wrote there are updates regarding the Blue Economy; Rhode Island was 1 of 60 submissions to be selected in a federal EDA Phase 1 Build Back Better Regional grant challenge. Phase 2 will identify 10-12 regional proposals to receive between $80-100 million toward regional collaborations. Miaoulis said many RWU community members are involved in the processes behind securing Phase two, which has an approaching deadline of March.

Dr. Dameian Slocum joined administration as the Associate Vice President for Student Life. As of Tuesday, Feb. 15, RWU will launch additional important diversity and equity initiatives. Miaoulis said that this includes an update on this year’s Equity Score Card at a 9 a.m. session for faculty and staff, the fall campus climate survey as well as the rollout of RWU’s first university-wide anti-racism education campaign.

After the winter intersession and the emergence of the Omicron variant, Miaoulis said that over break, nearly 1 in 5 RWU campus community members tested positive for COVID. The campus dashboard for COVID-19 data will not include those who tested positive over break as they will be exempt from testing protocols in the short term months ahead. As a result, those exemptions will affect the overall testing volume and positivity rate with those individuals not being calculated.

As Miaoulis stated in his letter, “It is time to continue our great work together on our campuses and in the community, while we continue to keep a close watch on our testing data and what is happening around us, with care for the community guiding us forward.”