From computer scientist to associate provost: Programming the path for faculty development

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Aug. 20, 2025) — Back in 2020, amid the uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the resultant response to a worldwide crisis, many found pockets of peace in the mundane.

People turned toward hobbies, picking up musical instruments or books. Others began investing in their own physical fitness — purchases of home fitness equipment spiked, and online searches for “home workouts” sharply increased the first few months of the year.

UK’s new associate provost for faculty advancement, Rebecca Thomas, Ph.D., had enjoyed knitting as a hobby, especially while raising her twin children, recalling soccer games that were spent knitting on the sidelines — perhaps occasionally interrupted by cheering.

But that year, having recently moved to Lexington to begin working at Transylvania University, rather than knitting, Thomas found peace in watching “The Repair Shop,” a popular BBC television series where experts restore cherished family heirlooms and antiques, often delving into the families’ stories and memories associated with their artifacts. 

“I remember the first episode that I watched,” she said, “and in it there was this broken piece of ceramic or something. And the expert very calmly said to the family, ‘Well, this has been mended badly in the past. So, what I’m going to do is to try several solvents to address that.’”

Thomas describes the meticulous process the expert used to tackle the haphazard repairs done to the antique in the past — miming the painstaking work of applying solvents one by one, in order of potency, using a small cotton swab. The patience of the expert, waiting to see if it worked. The quiet satisfaction when, finally, the fourth solvent cuts through the mess and the repair of the artifact can begin. 

It is often an unremarkable process, but the methodical approach and patience displayed by the experts in “The Repair Shop” are both attributes Thomas has acquired and honed over the years, applying it to her own path — as a student, a professor and an administrator.

STEM: The family business

Thomas grew up in Barboursville, West Virginia, right outside of Huntington and Marshall University, where her father was a psychology professor. Her mother was a computer programmer, working for Procter & Gamble and later Michigan State University. 

Both her parents encouraged her to explore the STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields at a young age — in addition to his social science background, Thomas’ father taught graduate statistics and data analysis. 

As a child, Thomas had a particular knack for math, and because of her mother’s programming background, she grew up learning about computers in the home — a rare occurrence before the proliferation of personal computers. 

Because of her mother’s work, Thomas also grew up around computer punch cards. Also known as punched cards or Hollerith cards, these were small paper cards with series of punched holes in set positions, similar in size to a dollar bill, that were essential to data processing, predating traditional hard drives. 

On top of a tall storage cabinet in Thomas’ office in the Main Building sits a single punch card on a small stand, marked with columns of holes — from a program written by her mother when she worked at Michigan State.

“Punch cards were how you got data into the computer,” Thomas said. “There are columns with holes punched in them, and if you were running a program, every line of your program would be on a punch card. You would feed the cards in, and it would read your program.”

Being raised around numbers, computers and programming clearly influenced Thomas — with her parents’ encouragement, she chose to study electrical engineering at MIT where she earned her bachelor’s degree.

Her younger brother, Wayne, was not untouched by these childhood influences. He also studied electrical engineering, and he earned his bachelor’s degree from Virginia Tech. 

“My mom’s extended family has a ton of engineers, so you know how it is,” Thomas said. “If a lot of people in a family are doing something, you just hear it talked about.” 

The student becomes the teacher

After earning her bachelor’s degree, Thomas did something that many people can relate to — she changed paths. 

“When I was in undergrad, I kept thinking about whether to change my major to computer science, but I never quite committed,” she said. “But by the time I finished, I thought, ‘Yeah, computer science is what I want to do.’”

So, Thomas began her graduate studies in computer science, and she went on to earn her doctorate from Stanford University.

There, her research focused on multi-agent systems and eventually natural language processing. But throughout her educational journey, she nurtured an innate desire to become a professor.

“I always knew that I wanted to teach,” she said. “I’d always informally tutored, and it was very interesting to me to figure out how to explain complicated content.” 

In addition to her father being a university professor, Thomas’ mother was also a teacher.

“When I was in elementary school, she decided to become a CPA,” Thomas said. “So, she taught evening programming classes at Marshall and used the pay from that to take accounting classes.”

Thomas’ teaching career spanned more than 20 years — she began as a visiting instructor at Middlebury College in Vermont before securing tenure-track positions as assistant professor of computer science at the University of Northern Iowa and Marist College. 

She then took on the role of associate professor at Bard College, where she and her colleague co-founded the computer science major, and she taught from 2000 until 2015.

“My teaching was across the board because I was in a small department of four people [at Bard], so we all taught pretty broadly,” she said. “And that was actually good for me, to have to stay current across a broader array of fields.”

As the daughter of two teachers, the profession became her passion. 

“Teaching was extremely fulfilling for me. I really loved it,” Thomas said. “I taught at three or four different institutions, and the variety of different institutions was interesting. Trying to think about how to reach each particular audience was a challenge.” 

Listening to Thomas recall stories of past teaching experiences, it is easy to hear the passion in her voice and the fondness with which she remembers the classroom. And it was these experiences that helped lead her into leadership roles.

A career defined by service

“Really, my mission is to serve students, but I do that by supporting faculty as opposed to directly in the classroom,” she said.

In the last decade working as an administrator, Thomas has held several roles, first as the dean of the college at Bard College and then vice president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty at Earlham College. She most recently served at Transylvania University as executive vice president for academic affairs and dean of the university. 

Across these institutions, Thomas has held many responsibilities, including curricular oversight and faculty hiring and evaluation, the latter of which is a large component of her role at UK as associate provost for faculty advancement. 

“I was excited about the faculty advancement role in particular because of the faculty development piece,” she said. “You know, once I got 20 or 25 years into my career, I felt that I have things I can share, and I have an idea of how to help newer faculty develop.”

At UK, Thomas is eager to contribute to a mission that has helped define her own career.

“One of the things that I’ve always been interested in is access to education,” she said. “It’s important to me that any person who wants to pursue a college education should have that available. And obviously, the University of Kentucky is very committed to serving the Commonwealth in that way.”

Thomas details the work of UK’s Office for Faculty Advancement (OFA), noting that there is a robust team of professionals who work to support faculty across all areas — whether teaching, research, clinical practice, extension or service. And she reiterates her belief that it is important to support faculty as the people who are teaching and guiding students to become professionals, artists and leaders. 

Now, as associate provost for faculty advancement at a large, land-grant institution with thousands of faculty members, she sees that impact more than ever.

“It’s a lot of responsibility. But I do enjoy it. It’s fulfilling in a different way than teaching,” she said. “I do still miss being in the classroom, but now I have a wider scope of impact. It’s really great if I can teach 30, 50 or 100 students. But if I can support 30 faculty, how many more students are impacted by that?”

From her days as a visiting instructor to her time as a professor of computer science and now as associate provost, Thomas continues to hold tightly the idea that her role is to help faculty reach their goals and support their work.

Whether fresh out of graduate school or someone with years of experience, she feels it is important to support their growth during all phases. But patience, she notes, is key.

“As new faculty, it’s going to take you a semester or two to get your hands around all the things you need to do. Don’t feel like you have to know it all in one day,” she said. “Talk to some of your other senior colleagues and just get advice. There are a lot of people who will help you figure things out and guide you.” 

And she underscores the importance of finding support among peers, particularly for those beginning their careers.

It takes a village

Being a new faculty member entails a great deal of hard work — they are expected to acclimatize to a new setting in a new university, and at one as large as UK, there are many moving parts to learn. And particularly for faculty coming out of graduate school, the learning curve can be steep. 

“It can be overwhelming,” Thomas said. “There’s a lot of pressure and expectation, and you might not know quite what’s expected of you, where you fit in or how to get done all you have to do.

“But just keep breathing.”

Thomas said support can come from unexpected sources. Faculty at UK have resources and services like the Center for the Enhancement of Learning and Teaching (CELT) and OFA. But often, it is a community of your peers that offers the greatest reassurance that a new faculty member is doing exactly what they need to be doing.

She mentions the so-called twin parents club, and how parents of newborn twins are often stopped by other parents of older twins and told, “It’s going to get easier.”

Thomas says it was perplexing the first few times it happened to her when her children were still young.

But just a couple months ago, as she was driving in town, she spotted a woman walking with a pair of children in a stroller.

“They’re twins, aren’t they?” she said to the mother after pulling over.

The mother nodded, looking exhausted.

“My twins are 28 now,” said Thomas. “And I just want to tell you that it’s going to get easier.”

Learn more about different faculty resources at UK and how Thomas and OFA work to support faculty at ofa.uky.edu/faculty-resources.