Changes to Provost’s leadership team announced

January 22, 2024

A message from the Office of the Provost

Wake Forest Provost Michele Gillespie announced ­­­today that a series of changes will be coming to the Provost’s leadership team later this year.

Effective July 1, after six remarkable years, Professor of Physics Keith Bonin and Professor of Theatre and Dance Christina Soriano will be stepping away from their vice provost roles to take a well-deserved, year-long research leave before returning to the faculty.

The Office of the Provost is launching a search for a Vice Provost for Research, Scholarly Inquiry, and Creative Activity with the help of the consulting firm WittKieffer this month, and more information about that process will be forthcoming.

Also effective July 1, Professor of Business Stacie Petter will be joining the Office of the Provost to serve as the inaugural Associate Provost for Faculty Affairs.

Professor Petter is currently the Area Chair for Analytics, Information Systems, Marketing, and Operations Management, the Citibank/Calloway Fellow, and Professor of Management Information Systems in the School of Business. She joined Wake Forest in 2022 with extensive teaching, research, administrative, and interdisciplinary experience, and is a talented and creative problem solver. Her current research, funded by the National Science Foundation, addresses the societal problem of human trafficking and involves close collaborations with scholars in computer science, criminal justice, and industrial and systems engineering.

Stacie Petter

Since Stacie’s appointment at Wake Forest, she has served as a member of the Research, Scholarship, and Areas of Excellence Working Group for “Framing Our Future;” on the School of Business’s PATH 2.0 task force charged with revising the faculty variable workload policy; and was elected to the Faculty Senate, where she serves on the Fringe Benefits Committee.

“During the faculty affairs search process,” explained Provost Gillespie, “the Provost’s Office Leadership Team and the Deans’ Council immediately recognized that Stacie’s impressive teacher-scholar record and her strong work implementing mentoring programs, recruiting and evaluation policies, professional development resources, diversity and inclusion initiatives, funding programs, and faculty and student recognition programs made her the ideal person for this new role.

“As delighted as I am that Stacie will be joining the Provost’s Office though, it is bittersweet to see Keith and Christina preparing to embark on their much-merited research leaves,” Gillespie continued.  “Both vice provosts are trailblazing, legacy-making institutional leaders.”

Under Bonin’s role as Vice Provost for Research and Scholarly Inquiry, annual awards have grown by 35% from $10 million to $13.5 million. Research expenditures have grown by 39%, from $14.2 million to $19.8 million. The number of submitted proposals has grown by 62% in the last 5 years (106 to 172 submitted annually). NSF Career Awards increased from three (2013-2017) to eight (2020-2024). The Center for Research, Engagement, and Collaboration in African American Life (RECALL) and the Center for Literacy Education were established under his effective guidance, and he supports eight centers and institutes.

Keith Bonin

Under Bonin’s watch, the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs (ORSP) is currently reconfiguring based on an independent assessment of the University’s research environment by the Huron Consulting Group to enable Wake Forest’s research administration staff to better serve faculty, staff, and students. WakerSpace was established early during his tenure and continues to develop experiential learning across Wake Forest. He created a Research & Discovery Task Force with broad representation from the College and the Professional Schools to recommend best practices for growing external research at Wake Forest. Bonin established a new Wake Forest Intercampus Collaborative Grant Award to provide internal seed funding to teams collaborating between the Reynolda Campus/Wake Downtown and the Wake Forest University School of Medicine to foster interdisciplinary research collaborations that spark long-term projects attracting external funding. This last year alone, a total of 33 unique academic departments, academic units, centers, and administrative departments received grant funding–the greatest number on record in the history of the Reynolda Campus.

“As impressive as all these achievements are,” Gillespie said,  “Keith is also a warm, generous, people person.  He works extremely hard at ensuring faculty can be successful in their teacher-scholar ambitions by personally mentoring faculty at all stages of their career, finding them new resources, and paving the way for their professional growth and recognition.”

Christina Sorinao

Christina Soriano has also made an extraordinary difference in her role as Vice Provost for the Arts and Interdisciplinary Initiatives. Her work with Wake the Arts and the Interdisciplinary Arts Center (IAC) has institutionalized the arts across the Wake Forest community. In Fall 2023 alone, Wake the Arts promoted, guided, or otherwise engaged with at least 426 arts events on campus. Initiatives specifically designated under the Wake the Arts brand have received $1.1 million in philanthropic gifts over the last six years. Soriano herself has helped secure more than $10 million in arts funding. She established the IAC (which had its roots in the Interdisciplinary Performance in the Liberal Arts Center, IPLACe, 2012-2020), has had oversight of the acclaimed Secrest Artist Series, and enhanced Wake Forest’s art collections, by bringing in new leadership, making the art more accessible (e.g. The Bloomberg Digital Guide), and celebrating the Mark H. Reece Collection of Student-Acquired Contemporary Art.

While Vice Provost, Christina was recognized as a 2018 Influencer in Aging by Next Avenue for her tireless work, passion, and mission to unleash the potential of older adults, was named a 2019-2020 Kennedy Center Citizen Artist Fellow as one of eight national arts change-makers, and was awarded two NIH grants for her research with Professor Christina Hugenschmidt at the School of Medicine. She has helped secure a Luce Foundation Grant to commission and produce two original plays to be presented at the 2024 National Black Theatre Festival (in collaboration with the School of Divinity, the North Carolina Black Repertory Company and Wake the Arts) and supported the Lam Museum’s Wake Forest’s blockchain and cultural property project. She has played a leading role in facilitating such notable interdisciplinary events as Wakeville, Wake Forest’s first student-run arts festival, and From the Ground Up, a large-scale performance in which 70 team members from the Wake Forest Facilities and Campus Services group highlighted the grace and skill in their work that keeps campus running.

“Christina’s incredible work has built a solid foundation for the arts at Wake Forest, and thanks to her efforts, they are in a position to flourish,” said Gillespie. “I’m excited that her upcoming leave will give her much-needed time and space to focus more exclusively on her pathbreaking NIH collaborative work surrounding neuroscience, movement, and neurodegenerative diseases, and I look forward to seeing what’s next as Christina and her advisory board colleagues ensure the arts grow its impact across the Wake Forest community and beyond through the IAC.”