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UVA adds enrollment VP, recruits for other top posts

Incoming Vice Provost for Enrollment Stephen Farmer (Grad ’86) Courtesy of the Univ. of North Carolina-Chapel Hill

A new leader will oversee an effort to enhance UVA’s admission and enrollment practices. On Jan. 1, Stephen Farmer (Grad ’86) will become the University’s first vice provost for enrollment. He will lead the offices of Undergraduate Admission, the University Registrar and Student Financial Services, and build new strategies aimed at attracting and enrolling applicants and supporting students’ financial needs.

“There’s a real logic in bringing them together,” Provost M. Elizabeth “Liz” Magill (Law ’95) said. “They all are services that are really important to students.”

Farmer was senior assistant dean of admission at UVA before moving to The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) 20 years ago. He’s currently vice provost for enrollment and undergraduate admissions at UNC, where he’s made “remarkable contributions to the shape of the class,” Magill said, attracting more first-generation students and students from underrepresented minorities, as well as building a one-stop shop for students with questions about financial aid and academic matters.

Farmer said he’s grateful for the chance to return to UVA. “Few schools inspire such loyalty as UVA, and few inspire such hope,” Farmer said in a statement to Virginia Magazine.

UVA also is in the process of filling four vacant high-level positions. This fall, Magill announced that School of Medicine Dean Dr. David Wilkes, School of Architecture Dean Ila Berman and School of Engineering Dean Craig Benson will be stepping down. Earlier this year, Patricia M. Lampkin (Educ ’86), vice president and chief student affairs officer, announced her retirement.

Wilkes became dean in 2015 and will remain in the role for another year while UVA conducts a national search to replace him. Magill credited him with bringing in a number of top researchers and increasing research dollars to the school.

Berman was named dean in 2016. She will continue at UVA to work on the architecture school’s Next Cities, an interdisciplinary program she launched in 2017 that looks at the challenges and future of urban areas, Magill said.

Benson was named dean in 2015 and has fostered research and attracted more doctoral students to the engineering school, Magill said. He will leave his position on June 30 to take a year-long leave before returning as a faculty member.

Search committees were in place in early October to replace Wilkes and Lampkin and were soon to be formed to fill the positions left by Berman and Benson, Magill said.