Message from the President

March 9, 2023

Dear Campus Community:

As you know, Dr. Janna Arney decided late last summer to step down as Provost at the end of the academic year. She recently informed me that she also intends to retire from the university this summer. She will not return to her Executive Vice President role in the Office of the President but will stay on to assist with the transition of our new Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs and to complete numerous projects that she is leading. I am sure you will all join me both in wishing Dr. Arney a long and happy retirement and in letting her know how deeply appreciative we are for all that she has done for UTRGV and our legacy institution, UTB.

Although Dr. Arney’s contributions to UTRGV and UTB are well known, they are well worth repeating here because they are truly remarkable. A native of Brownsville who attended Texas Southmost College, Dr. Arney joined the faculty at UTB-TSC in 2002 after receiving her Ph.D. from The Ohio State University and holding faculty positions at Bowling Green University and California State University Northridge. She began her administrative career at UTB-TSC in 2006 as Associate Provost for Faculty and Academic Affairs, and in that role, she co-chaired the UT System’s transition team charged with coordinating the separation of UTB and TSC. UT System later appointed her as UTB’s Chief Executive Officer during that institution’s closure. This was arguably one of the most difficult tasks in the history of higher education for all involved.

The job of planning and implementing UTRGV wasn’t much easier. Dr. Arney was the third person hired at UTRGV in 2014 (after the Dean of the School of Medicine and President) and was instrumental in the formation of the institution from its beginnings. As Vice President of Operations and Chief of Staff, she organized and oversaw the following units: Human Resources, Legal Affairs, University Marketing and Communications, Institutional Compliance, Strategic Analysis and Institutional Reporting, Information Security, and Security and Campus Affairs. In 2017, she was appointed Deputy President and worked with me on a wide range of institutional initiatives while continuing oversight of these areas in addition to others. In 2020, as the pandemic was just beginning, I asked her to take on the role of Interim Provost in addition to her other duties, and a year later, removed the interim title and named her Executive Vice President and Provost.

Dr. Arney was instrumental in hiring much of the university’s initial leadership team while also playing a key role in helping UTRGV obtain accreditation from SACSCOC. During the pandemic, she played a key role in ensuring that UTRGV used its federal stimulus money in a wise and legal manner, a task made especially hard by complicated and shifting federal guidelines for spending the money.

As Provost, her contributions are too numerous to list here, but she did tackle some pressing institutional priorities, including:

creating a culture of collaboration and cross-divisional coordination in supporting our students;
establishing a decentralized approach to budgeting for our academic and health colleges/schools;
streamlining policies and procedures, especially related to evaluation;
developing processes for more equitable distribution of merit pay and developing a compensation plan to address salary compression issues;
developing governance procedures for space utilization and planning;
supporting and facilitating the development of 15 new programs, including 5 doctoral programs;
and leading UTRGV’s certification as a Seal of Excelencia university.

Throughout all this work, Dr. Arney emphasized teamwork and team building, breaking down silos and working together as a single organization. Our current effectiveness as a team owes much to her efforts. She has the remarkable ability to be both a listener and a doer. As a result, things got done with a minimum of disruption.

It should be evident from the list above that Dr. Arney has been entrusted with many of the most difficult and critical tasks in the institution, all of which she has done extremely well. Much of UTRGV’s success is due to her efforts, and we wouldn’t be where we are today without her. It is difficult to overstate just how much we as an institution owe her. Dr. Arney will be missed – more than she can ever imagine – but certainly never forgotten. Her work and accomplishments ensure that she will always be part of UTRGV.

Finally, I would like to add a word of personal appreciation. I’ve worked with a very large number of people over the last 30 years as an academic administrator, but none that I admire and appreciate as much as Dr. Arney. She is as selfless as anyone I have ever met, and when she takes on a task, she puts herself into it completely and relentlessly. She simply won’t quit until it is done and done right. I’ve worked with some excellent administrators, but none quite like her.

Thank you, Dr. Arney.

Sincerely,

Guy Bailey
President