Sent on behalf of Provost Jerold Hale:

Greetings UTC faculty and staff,

I am excited to announce to the campus community that Dr. Delight Yokley has been appointed Assistant Provost for Student Success, effective Sept. 18.

Dr. Yokley comes to UTC to direct “A Moc’s First Year,” the Quality Enhancement Plan proposed in the spring for our Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC) reaffirmation. This new program aims to increase first-time, full-time freshman students’ retention and graduation rates. “A Moc’s First Year” will connect a variety of current and new initiatives, culminating in a centralized learning community model that increases student and faculty interaction, the overall feeling of community on campus, the connection of new students to Chattanooga, and overall student success at UTC.

Dr. Yokley most recently served as the Dean of the Learning Commons—a variety of first-year experience and student success programs—at the University of Mount Olive in North Carolina, where she participated in and led many of the activities that will now be a part of her UTC portfolio. Her knowledge of first-year experience and student achievement activities and programs, program assessment and previous involvement with SACSCOC made her the preferred candidate of multiple campus stakeholder groups to lead “A Moc’s First Year.”

Before Mount Olive, she researched and developed programming on academic support and career development for the Graduate Scholars Program at Virginia Tech University while simultaneously pursuing her Ph.D. She received a bachelor’s degree in history from Messiah University in Pennsylvania and a master’s degree in education from Cleveland State University in Ohio.

Dr. Yokley was an outstanding candidate and will be a terrific appointment. Her professional background, management experience and collaborative leadership will serve UTC well as we embark on an exciting initiative to promote cohort experiences for our students. She is the right person to help us move the needle on student retention, persistence and graduation rates, building on UTC’s successes during Chancellor Angle’s tenure.

I am grateful to the search committee, led by Director of Assessment and SACSCOC Liaison Cindy Williamson, for selecting a talented set of finalists for this crucial new position in Academic Affairs.

Please join me in congratulating Delight on her new role and welcoming her to UTC.

Thank you,

Jerold L. Hale

Provost and Senior Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs