Paul Welty Vice Provost for Academic Innovation, Interim Executive Director, Emory Continuing Education
As vice provost for academic innovation and interim director of the Emory Continuing Education (ECE) program, Paul Welty is responsible for Facet, the enterprise-wide faculty database; the Hatchery, a center through which Emory's student creators and entrepreneurs can experience all stages of innovation from inspiration and learning to projects and startups; and ECE, which helps people broaden their skills and contribute to changing workplace needs.
The team Welty leads operates as a campus think tank of internal consultants for whom the priority is to identify, harvest, produce, and publish information about academic innovation. Methodologically, the team gathers data on problems or emerging opportunities, finds apt partnerships, consolidates or pushes boundaries where needed, and dreams better ways of doing things through innovation. Often, the transformations the team envisions happen digitally.
Welty brings to Emory more than 20 years of experience in the technology and marketing industries, where he has built solutions, teams, and organizations that address business problems with modern technology at companies such as North Highland, Sparks Grove, Synaxis, and the Merge Agency.
Selected Career Milestones
- Oversaw the renovation and opening of The Hatchery, a 15,000-square-foot innovation center
- Created the Teaching Toolkit and Learning Toolkit, centralized resources from around Emory of teaching, classroom, campus, and safety information
- With the onset of COVID-19, transitioned 205 continuing education courses to online format in three months; designed and implemented a system to track building access and onboarding compliance; created the Virtual Community Hub, an online resource for students to provide co-curricular and social opportunities during physical distancing
- Developed Eagle Essentials, a first-of-its-kind catalog of career-oriented classes for Emory students
- Launched Grad Gift 2020, which offers career-oriented classes to Emory graduates (providing $155,000 in course value for $2,700 in new expenses)
Education
- BA, Jacksonville University
- MA and PhD, Emory University
My team’s joy and skill is in discovering things that work, being conveners, and finding ways to do more in challenging environments. We love learning about successful programs and are always up for doing a pilot. Our dedication is to advance ideas and projects that will benefit Emory but might require more support to advance.