Dennis Groth
Dennis Groth has always put students first. It’s the cornerstone of a distinguished career that has spanned five decades, including a two-year run as Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering interim dean, that only now shows signs of slowing down. He retired on June 1.
The latest example comes with his receiving the Indiana University Venkat Distinguished Service Award. Named for longtime faculty leader M.A. Venkataramanan, who excelled as a university administrator and professor, the award recognizes a faculty member or librarian whose service has made a significant and lasting impact on the Bloomington campus.
“I’m humbled to receive this recognition for my service,” Groth says. “Having worked for so many years with Venkat on many campus initiatives makes the recognition that much more appreciated.”
Groth is the third person to receive the award.
“One driving principle I tried to employ was by asking the question, How can we improve student success?” he says. “Whether it was through direct actions to improve academic programs, or through indirect actions of supporting faculty, who, in turn, support student learning, achievement and success, a focus on student success is always the goal.”
Groth has served in almost every possible academic administration role at the Luddy School, and the IU Bloomington campus. Besides interim dean and Informatics professor, he has been Undergraduate Associate Dean and the inaugural Undergraduate Program Director for Informatics at the Luddy School, as well as IU’s inaugural Associate Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education, and the Accreditation Liaison Officer.
“These roles of increasing and broad responsibility have provided me with opportunities to contribute to the mission of Indiana University Bloomington that have been rewarding and challenging,” he says.
Groth was named Luddy interim dean in March of 2020, just days before the coronavirus outbreak shut down the campus, and, basically, the entire world. It forced all Luddy classes to a virtual environment. Groth met that challenge, and so much more, holding the position until July of 2022, when current dean Joanna Millunchick took over.
As interim dean, Groth increased attention on retention, implemented the first ever social media recruiting marketing campaign, and focused on professional master programs admissions, yielding an overall 30 percent increase in revenue from tuition and fees to correct significant issues with the budget. He also implemented the mandatory 5 percent budget cut during the pandemic without reducing faculty or staff. He retained key faculty that were contemplating outside offers and successfully completed multiple faculty searches.
Other accomplishments include leading efforts to increase undergraduate first-year retention from 88.8 percent to 91.5 percent through a range of enhancements to academic advising, academic support, and data-based approaches for understanding factors leading to student success; implementing enhanced professionalization of academic advising on campus; establishing formal review and promotion processes; successfully leading campus accreditation efforts for more than 10 years; implementing a comprehensive, faculty-engaged, learning analytics program; supporting faculty research on student success in their courses; and funding more than 70 faculty research projects to increase faculty and department awareness of factors leading to student success.
Groth also created and led the IU2U program, which established a series of workshops to prepare incoming international students and their families for college life.
His award, said Carrie Docherty, vice provost for faculty and academic affairs, reflects going “above and beyond in service to IU’s campus, disciplines and communities.”
She also praised Groth’s “extraordinary academic leadership” during the challenges of the pandemic.
Groth was recommended by a faculty committee sponsored by the Office of the Vice Provost for Faculty and Academic Affairs and selected by the provost. A celebration reception is set for this fall.
Groth says he enjoyed every administrative opportunity.
“My job was to get things done, to support student and institutional success, and robustly engage with our faculty and administrative colleagues to accomplish our collective goals.”