Chris Banyas
Life Editor
How many liberal arts majors have been faced with the phrase, “what are you going to do with that?” in reference to their impending degree, whether it be in English, history, philosophy, political science or something else?
Laura Woodworth-Ney, who may be better known to students of Idaho State University as “The Provost,” began her collegiate career as an English major but even before that looked up to writers.
“I always wanted to be a writer or journalist, so women who broke into journalism have always been people I admired,” said Woodworth-Ney. “Also people like Virginia Woolf, who was a very prominent twentieth century writer, who in her own right broke into a pretty much male-dominated field.”
Woodworth-Ney spent much of her time, from an early age, reading, and knew she would be an English major from the first years of high school.
Born in Portland, Oregon, Woodworth-Ney moved to Rupert, Idaho when she was five years old.
“I’m definitely a Pacific Northwesterner. Born in Oregon, raised in Idaho, went to school in Washington,” said Woodworth-Ney. “I lived in Washington two separate times, so I would regionally identify with those three states.”
High standards, especially in regard to education, were instilled in Woodworth-Ney from an early age.
“All of my grandparents were really committed to education and they, for various reasons, had not had a lot of educational opportunities themselves growing up, so they made sure that my parents did,” said Woodworth-Ney. “One of my grandparents, his parents were immigrants, so they had that strong commitment to the idea that education can provide economic stability but also civic responsibility.”
After earning her undergraduate degree in English at the University of Idaho, Woodworth-Ney earned her Master’s and Ph.D. in history at Washington State.
“By the time I was in grad school my interests had changed,” said Woodworth-Ney. “I was more interested in the historical contexts of what I was working on than the literature itself, although that’s always continued to be a focus.”
Woodworth-Ney began teaching history at ISU in the fall of 1999 and soon worked her way up to the chair of the department before taking an associate vice president position in the provost’s office.
In June of 2013, Woodworth-Ney was named provost and vice president for academic affairs.
A definition of terms in regard to the provost position may be helpful as the title itself leaves much to the imagination.
Not every college has a provost.
“Every college has a dean, but the provost is the chief academic officer for the institution as a whole,” said Woodworth-Ney. “The hierarchy usually, on the academic administration side, is chair, dean, provost. So the chairs report to the deans and the deans report to the provost.”
According to Woodworth-Ney, the provost is responsible for maintaining quality in all of the academic programs, by assessing how programs are delivered and working with deans to make sure that the assessment program is happening.
“The provost is also responsible for all of the academic reporting that the institution is responsible for providing,” said Woodworth-Ney.
Having worked as a teacher in the system that she now oversees, Woodworth-Ney has a different perspective on it.
“Anyone that has spent a lot of time in the classroom will know what I mean when I talk about missing that. You get a lot of positive energy from classroom environments,” said Woodworth-Ney. “I really miss that interaction with students. I don’t get as much of that now. Because it is the core of what we do at every institution and it’s the core of what we do here and while what I do now supports all of those functions in important ways, it’s different.”
Recently ISU completed its seven-year comprehensive review as part of the accreditation process.
“I’m most proud of how the campus came together to meet the requirements of the state board’s mandate that we look at all of our programs, we prioritize our programs and that we come up with some creative solutions for how we want to move forward as an institution,” said Woodworth-Ney.
Woodworth-Ney maintains an appreciation for the teaching faculty that she was once a part of.
“Our faculty are world class. They’re committed to students but they’re also doing great work in their disciplines. They’re solving the world’s problems essentially, in their labs and in their articles and in their books,” said Woodworth-Ney. “It’s always a privilege to serve our faculty and I feel that we’re making a lot of progress in terms of providing opportunities for students too, that are different and we’re committed to continuing to do that.”
