Dr. Patrick Louchouarn joined Ohio State as the inaugural senior vice provost for faculty and a new SES faculty member in August 2022. He joins OSU after 17 years academic and administrative work at Texas A&M University. Since then, he and his team in the Office of Academic Affairs (OAA) has been working on developing strategies to support the career success of faculty members. “My goal is to create and lead programs that support the entire career cycle of faculty from pre-recruitment to retirement”, said Dr. Louchouarn. His team works on developing better practices for each stage of the faculty life cycle, from new faculty hiring to tenure and promotion, mentoring programs for mentors, leadership development for new chairs, and coffee conversations for chairs.

Dr. Louchouarn oversees the Drake Institute for Teaching and Learning, the RAISE Initiative, the Provost’s Early Career Scholar’s Program, the Scarlet & Gray mid-career scholars program, awards and recognition, and the Office of Relocation and Dual Careers. He also works on fostering workshops to support both the personal and career development of faculty. This January, OAA held the first of a two-step series workshop on strategies for effectively telling professional stories, in support of tenure and promotion. The second event (in early March) will offer an opportunity to hear from a recently promoted faculty on techniques of storytelling applied to the building of one’s professional narrative, to engage with a panel of academic leaders on what they’ve seen works in building a dossier, and to get direct feedback from other faculty on their narrative draft. “We are designing more useful workshops for faculty, such as leadership development, communication, and time management”, said Dr. Louchouarn.

Community building is one of Dr. Louchouarn’s key visions. He has also been facilitating networks for multiple faculty groups, including early career, mid-career, women+, and faculty of color. “We see faculty as who they are. Our job is to enhance their work-life experience to support inclusive excellence of the community”, said Dr. Louchouarn.

Dr. Louchouarn’s team is planning to leverage technology to create networks among faculty, amplify their voice, and create peer-to-peer connections. “We’d like to develop platforms where faculty members could tell their stories and share resources in an accessible way.” As an example, short videos featuring faculty members’ experiences can deliver small packets of information in accessible time and foster peer connections. Experiences such as new faculty onboarding and resources as small as tricks using Carmen Canvas can be effectively shared within the community. The team is also building a well-structured website as the go-to place for faculty by hosting categorized information such as faculty development opportunities and resources for promotion and tenure.

As a faculty member, Dr. Louchouarn’s research focuses on biogeochemistry and pyrogenic carbon transport in soils and aquatic systems. On January 27th, he joined the Spring 2023 Seminar Series in SES to share his research in the last decades. The SES community has been enthusiastic to meet and work with him.