Timeline of Academic Leadership at UNCA

The colorful timeline below is scrollable so you can stroll through time to review our academic leadership back to 1990/1991. By academic leadership, we mean the provosts, the deans, and the chancellors under which they served.

{
  let w = width < 1135 ? width : 1135;
  let h = 420;
  let item_height = 30;
  let years = d3.sort(_.uniq(leadership_data.map((o) => o.year))).reverse();
  let position_width = 260;
  let year_width = 300;
  let element_pad = 8;
  let div = d3
    .create("div")
    .style("width", `${w}px`)
    .style("height", `${h}px`)
    .attr('class', 'main-container')

  // Assign colors to names
  let color_map = new Map();
  _.uniq(leadership_data.map((o) => o.name)).forEach(function (name, i) {
    color_map.set(
      name,
      d3
        .color(d3.schemeCategory10[i % 10])
        .darker(0.4)
        .toString()
    );
  });

  // Set up the positions displayed on the left
  let positions = [
    "Chancellor",
    "Provost",
    "Associate Provost",
    "Assistant Provost",
    "Dean of Natural Sciences",
    "Dean of Social Sciences",
    "Dean of Humanities"
  ];
  let position_container = div
    .append("div")
    .style("display", "inline-block")
    .style("width", `${position_width}px`)
    .style("height", `${h}px`)
    .style("vertical-align", "top")
    .style("border-right", "solid 0.5px #555");
  position_container
    .append("div")
    .style("height", `${item_height}px`)
    .style('padding-left', '4px') 
    .append("h3")
    .html("Position");
  positions.forEach(function (p) {
    position_container
      .append("div")
      .style("padding", `${element_pad}px`)
      .style("height", `${item_height}px`)
      .style("font-size", "16px")
      .attr('class', 'positions')
      .style("font-weight", "bold")
      .style('box-sizing', 'content-box')
      .html(p);
  });

  // Set up the timeline display
  let data_container = div
    .append("div")
    .style("display", "inline-block")
    .style("overflow", "auto")
    .style("overflow-y", "hidden")
    .style("white-space", "nowrap")
    .style("width", `${w - position_width - 5}px`)
    .style("height", `${h}px`)
    .style("vertical-align", "top");

  // Setup a column of names for each academic year
  years.forEach(function (year) {
    let this_year_div = data_container
      .append("div")
      .style("display", "inline-block")
      .style("width", `${year_width}px`);
    this_year_div
      .append("div")
      .style("width", `${year_width}px`)
      .append("div")
      .style("height", `${item_height}px`)
      .append("h3")
      .text(`${year}/${year + 1}`);

    let this_year_data = leadership_data.filter((o) => o.year == year);
    positions.forEach(function (position) {
      let this_data = this_year_data.filter((o) => o.position == position);
      let name_display;
      if(this_data.length > 0) {
        if(this_data[0].name && this_data[0].status == "regular") {
          name_display = this_data[0].name
        }
        else if(this_data[0].name && this_data[0].status) {
          name_display = `${this_data[0].name} (${this_data[0].status})`
        }
        else if(this_data[0].status) {
          name_display = `(${this_data[0].status})`
        }
      }
      else {
        name_display = "AEM";
      }
      let name_display0 = this_data.length > 0
        ? this_data[0].status == "regular"
          ? this_data[0].name
          : `${this_data[0].name} (${this_data[0].status})`
        : "AEM" // Just a place holder
      console.log([this_data, name_display, name_display0])
      this_year_div
        .append("div")
        .style("font-size", "16px")
        .style("padding", `${element_pad}px`)
        .style('box-sizing', 'content-box')
        .style("opacity", this_data.length == 0 ? 0 : 1)
        .style("color", "white")
        .style("border-top", "solid 3px white")
        .style("border-bottom", "solid 3px white")
        .style("height", `${item_height}px`)
        .style(
          "background-color",
          this_data.length > 0 && this_data[0].name ? color_map.get(this_data[0].name) : "lightgray"
        )
        .html(name_display)
      });
  });

  return div.node();
}

The data

The data all comes from past course catalogs. Thus, it doesn’t really capture changes that might have happened during the academic year. For example: - Chancellor Grant left mid-year, - Doug Orr served as interim chancellor while Chancellor Grant was Chancellor Elect, and - Sam Schuman and Brian Butler each served as Interim Provosts

It’s also worth mentioning that the overall structure has changed substantially over the years - expanding over quite some time and contracting a bit more recently. The timeline does not include, for example, Dean of Programs whose responsibilities were distributed amongst other Deans around the beginning of the current administration

Other comments

• I’ve equated the Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs of old with the Provost of today.
• The current dean structure began in 2003/2004. I believe they were the invention of Mark Padilla.
• Kai Campbell’s three years as Provost is the shortest duration of any non-interim Provost.
• There have been at least seven interim Provosts (including Sam Schuman and Brian Butler) in the past 30+ years. Kimberly van Noort is the first to come from outside of UNCA.

leadership_data = FileAttachment("./data/UNCAAcademicLeadership.csv").csv({
  typed: true
})