Academic Affairs selects next generation of UTSA leaders for faculty fellowship program

Yongcan Cao and Luca Pozzi are the new Next-Gen Faculty Leaderships Fellows.

NOVEMBER 8, 2023 — UTSA professors Yongcan Cao and Luca Pozzi have been named the 2023-2024 Advancing Next-Gen Faculty Leadership Fellows and will participate in a year-long, in-house training program created to cultivate current and future academic leaders at UTSA.

The fellowship program is personalized to meet the professional goals of each faculty member and is designed to enhance their career development through mentorship and one-on-one training. Each fellow acquires fundamental leadership skills while learning about the organization, operations and infrastructure of an institution of higher education. Fellows also gain insight into current and future challenges in academia and explore trending topics related to instruction and student learning.

Throughout the fellowship, participants work within a vice president or vice provost office on campus, applying their new leadership knowledge to complete a special project in their chosen office in collaboration with their mentor.

Cao is an associate professor in the Margie and Bill Klesse College of Engineering and Integrated Design’s electrical and computer engineering department, and a Margie and Bill Klesse Faculty Fellow. He will fulfill his Next-Gen Faculty Fellowship with the UTSA Office of Research, Economic Development and Knowledge Enterprise (REDKE) under the mentorship of REDKE Interim Vice President JoAnn Browning.

Along with Browning and the REDKE leadership team, Cao will craft a strategic, sustainable growth strategy that will promote and foster large-scale, high-impact research initiatives at UTSA.

Pozzi is an associate professor in the College of Liberal and Fine Arts’ anthropology department. He is a Ricardo Romo Endowed Professor in the Honors College and a 2023-2024 Lutcher Brown Fellow. Pozzi is completing his Next-Gen Faculty Fellowship within the Academic Innovation division. There, he will work to create new initiatives that increase the visibility and use of microcredentials—short, focused credentials offering an efficient way to learn in-demand skills—and artificial intelligence at UTSA.

His overarching goal is to develop innovative pedagogical strategies that support a classroom-to-career learning approach and promote deeper student engagement.

Cao and Pozzi will join 14 other UTSA faculty members who have completed the fellowship program, several of whom have been appointed to administrative roles within their colleges or at the university level or have been introduced to additional competitive leadership opportunities.

For example, Erica T. Sosa, who participated in the inaugural cohort of Next-Gen Fellows in 2019, is now professor and associate dean for research success in the UTSA College for Health, Community and Policy. She was also named a fellow in the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities’ (HACU) national leadership academy in 2023.

Kim-Kwang Raymond Choo and Terri Matiella completed their fellowships in the following year’s cohort. Choo is now assistant chair for the Carlos Alvarez College of Business’ Department of Information Systems and Cyber Security, and Matiella is assistant dean for innovative instruction and assessment in the College of Sciences and assistant chair for the college’s Department of Integrative Biology.

From the 2021-2022 cohort, two former fellows were appointed to new leadership roles. Rebecca Schroederis interim associate dean of University College and was recently selected for the Texas Academic Leadership Academy (TALA). Heather Trepal is now associate dean for academic programs and student success for the College of Education and Human Development.

UTSA launched the Next-Gen Faculty Fellowship program in 2019. It is administered by the UTSA Division of Academic Affairs’ office of faculty success. The program is open to tenured faculty at the rank of associate or full professor and full-time, fixed-term track faculty in the associate or professor of practice, instruction, research or clinical series. Nominees must have been employed as faculty at UTSA for at least three years. Nominations occur each spring semester.

UTSA, a premier public research university and Hispanic Serving Institution, is dedicated to recruiting, retaining and supporting world-class faculty who advance research excellence and student success. The university offers numerous teaching resources, research support, professional development opportunities and events to strengthen its faculty community, in turn creating an educational environment where all students can thrive.

— Chloe Johnson