University Faculty Recognition and External Award Workgroup

We are excited to announce a new collaborative effort between the Office of Faculty Development and Advance, the Office of Research, and Office of the Provost to increase recognition of FSU faculty. Peggy Wright-Cleveland, Ph.D., Director of Faculty Development and Recognition in the Office of Faculty Development and Advancement, and Sonja Carter, J.D., Director of Strategy and Recognition in the Office of Research, and are co-leading a University workgroup charged with identifying strategies and tactics to increase the number of FSU faculty applying and being nominated for Early Career awards, Prestigious and Highly Prestigious awards, and the National Academies. This workgroup has 18 members from nine different colleges.

During this inaugural year, the workgroup will be learning how FSU already recognizes faculty accomplishments and supports the nomination and application for external awards. We will also be looking at what in our systems might be working against us. The workgroup is focused on four areas: data and tracking; education and communication; systems and structures; the National Academies. If you have ideas, concerns, experiences, or celebrations to share, please let Sonja or Peggy know.

Writing Accountability Groups

It seems odd until you try it. FSU Writing Accountability meets virtually Monday through Friday, 6:30 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. Faculty set their own schedules within that timeframe and commit to a writing practice. We currently have 8 faithful writers who make a regular appearance during the week and several more drop-in writers who come in short spurts as needed. Upon arrival, each writer puts in the chat his/her/their goals for the day; before exit, each writer reports on his/her/their progress. Some days it helps to not write in isolation. If you want to give us a try, register here.

New Faculty Support Continues after Orientation

Remember that NCFDD is a faculty career development resource provided to each faculty member at FSU. Just go here https://www.facultydiversity.org/ and click on “Become a Member.” Your FSU ID and password will log you in.

If you are a new faculty member who would like to have conversation with others about the material in NCFDD, be sure to become a part of the New Faculty Development Deep Dive Canvas course. If you did not get an invitation, email Peggy Wright-Cleveland.

If you want to have conversation with a variety of FSU faculty in real time, register for the New Faculty Luncheon series. This series hosts new faculty in an informal setting to talk about issues of interest at FSU. This spring we plan to talk about career planning and grant support on February 12 and new education regulations on April 15. We gather at 11:30 at the Suwannee Dining Hall and get our lunches. We meet in the Conference Room by the entrance and eat and talk. Let us know below when you will attend. The first 10 reservations will get free lunch! Register here.

Faculty Fellows Mentoring Models

The Office of Faculty Development and the Office of Research inaugurated a Faculty Fellows project in 2021. The goal of the program is to provide the experience of university leadership to faculty. FSU has benefitted from the work of 11 Faculty Fellows who brought the experiences and viewpoints of five colleges and three centers to bear on university issues. Below you will learn of the work of two of those Faculty Fellows. If you are interested in pursuing such leadership opportunities, consider the call for 2024-25 Faculty Fellows.

Based on the 2021 COACHE survey results, faculty at FSU value mentoring, both as a mentor and as a mentee. On the COACHE survey, 88% of faculty responded that mentoring in their department was important and 72% of all FSU faculty respondents indicated they received very or someone effective mentoring from someone within their department. While FSU faculty were more satisfied with mentoring when compared to our peer institutions on the COACHE survey, there were areas of growth that were identified. For example, 63% of assistant professors said there was effective mentoring in their department, but only 30% of associate professors agreed that there was effective mentoring for them within their department. There is a similar difference when comparing specialized faculty to tenure-track faculty.

As part of their Faculty Fellowship with Janet Kistner (VP for Faculty Development and Advancement) and as participants in the FSU Emerging Leader Program, Lyndsay Jenkins (College of Education) and Shanna Daniels (College of Business) decided to approach their deans about the possibility of increasing faculty mentoring initiatives within their college, specifically for faculty who tend to receive less mentoring. Jenkins and Daniels had conversations with their deans about current mentoring initiatives, and the possibility of growing their colleges’ efforts of mentoring faculty in their respective colleges. In both colleges, the deans and chairs indicated that they were satisfied with the mentoring efforts for assistant professors but acknowledged that mentoring of associate professors was an area for improvement. In addition, the College of Education (now the College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences – EHHS) wanted to provide additional mentoring and faculty development support to specialized faculty.

Lyndsay Jenkins

In EHHS, Lyndsay Jenkins engaged in a similar initiative, but focused on associate professors and specialized faculty. These faculty completed a survey to help Jenkins identify topics that faculty wanted to learn more about. During the spring of 2023, Jenkins organized two sessions for associate professors and two sessions for specialized teaching faculty. For both groups the first session was focused on promotion and the second session focused on managing multiple demands. For the promotion sessions, Bob Eklund, Associate Dean of Faculty Development, provided an overview of promotion guidelines for both groups. At all four sessions, a panel of faculty was available to share their challenges and successes, as well as answer questions from the attendees. Based on the results of a concluding survey, faculty who attended the sessions perceived the sessions to be helpful and were eager for them to continue in the future. It seemed that getting together to discuss common challenges helped to increase collegiality and the perception of support from the College.

Damon Andrew, Dean of the College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences, noted, “The feedback we have received from our participating associate professors and specialized faculty about this new program has been overwhelmingly positive. The EHHS looks forward to instituting these mentoring programs on an annual basis to give our faculty the resources they need to pursue excellence in every endeavor.”

Shanna Daniels

In the College of Business, Shanna Daniels supported the development of the “Lunch and Learn” series for associate professors. During the Fall of 2022, the College of Business hosted a kickoff for the series where key stakeholders and associate professors attended to learn about the program. Following the launch session, Associate professors completed an online survey to assess their interest in specific topics related to mentoring at the mid-career level. In the spring of 2023, Daniels organized a session centered on managing multiple demands for associate professors. The session included a panel of three speakers from across the College of Business, which were Michael Brady, (Bob Sasser Professor of Marketing), Irena Hutton (Gene Taylor/Bank of America Professor of Finance), and Darren Brooks (Assistant Dean for Executive and Professional Programs). During the session, the panel of faculty shared their perspective on managing scholarship, teaching, and work life balance as an associate professor. The session was well received with over 85% of associate professors from the College attending. To gather feedback about the session, a post session survey was sent to attendees, and the data overwhelmingly indicates a desire for additional lunch and learn sessions in the future. The College of Business is planning the next sessions, one in the Fall of 2023 focused on promotion to full, and another in the spring of 2024 centered on applying for a Fulbright Fellowship.

The College of EHHS and College of Business plan to continue these mentoring initiatives after the successful launch in 2022-2023.

FSU welcomed over 220 new faculty in August. This distinguished group participated in FEAS training, Canvas training, the Course Design Institute, and New Faculty Orientation. We encouraged them to have some fun, too. Make an effort to meet a new colleague in another department and give them a proper FSU welcome. We are excited about the work we will all do together.

New Faculty Directory New Faculty Introduction Videos

New Faculty Award: Community Engaged Research Partnership Award

We are pleased to announce the Community Engaged Research Partnership Award! The award program is intended to both recognize and support mid-career and senior faculty at FSU who are committed to collaborating with community partners to produce research that is rigorous, relevant, and impactful. Applicants with a research focus and interest in creating and sustaining collaborative research-focused partnerships are strongly encouraged to apply.

This is a pilot faculty award program, made possible as a part of the Institutional Challenge Grant program awarded to the Florida Center for Reading Research (FCRR) by the William T. Grant Foundation, Doris Duke Foundation, and Spencer Foundation. During the pilot phase, we welcome applications to support research partnerships with public agencies and nonprofit organizations to address disparities in youth outcomes. Program continuation is contingent upon available funding and program success.

The Application Portal is NOW open. Up to four faculty will be awarded during the 2023-2024 academic year. We are accepting application packages for one deadline: December 15, 2023. Application reviews will begin in January 2024 and award notifications will be made in April of 2024. Awardees are expected to complete their projects between July 1, 2024 – June 30, 2025. For more information regarding the application process, please refer to the Request for Proposals. Prior to initiating your application, we recommend thoroughly reviewing the application questions and reviewer criteria.

More information about the award can be found at fcrr.org/projects/william-t-grant-foundation-institutional-challenge-grant. Questions about the program can be directed to the Principal Investigator, Nicole Patton Terry at npattonterry@fsu.edu.

FSU Authors Day Preparations Begin

Each year, FSU celebrates all book publications by FSU authors – faculty and staff. To get our list of books, we pull publications from FEAS. Publication dates for the 2024 celebrations are January 1, 2023 – December 31, 2023. If you are a faculty or staff member who has published a book in the last year, please either update your FEAS profile or reach out to Brew Schoonover at dschoonover@fsu.edu BY JANUARY 15TH to be sure your book is included in FSU Author’s Day.

ORCID

To make sure your research is widely publicized, cited, and made available to broader research and educational communities, the University is reminding faculty to enroll in ORCID. An ORCID iD is a researcher’s unique, public identification number that they can use to link to all their publications, grants, and other research products. It is very helpful when it comes to everything from importing your citation information into your FEAS CV to sharing your DOI and index information with colleagues. Though still new in some fields, it is the best tool available for allowing all of your work to be collected under your name. Major journal, minor journal, it doesn’t matter; if you claim a publication with your ORCID, it will always be attached to your name.

The FSU ORCID Task Force is ready to help your register. It will only take a few minutes of your time to register and connect your registration to my.fsu.edu.

Microsoft Power BI Premium available to FSU faculty

A powerful new enterprise analytics tool is available at FSU. From student enrollment stats to departmental budget figures, Microsoft Power BI Premium can query numerous university systems—including Student Central, myFSU Financials and myFSU Human Resources—and extract valuable insights and trends. Use the tool to support research, secure grant funding and much more. Microsoft Power BI Premium offers an enhanced experience over the existing myFSU BI and Power BI Pro tools and is available to faculty, staff and departments by request. For more information, visit the ITS enterprise analytics webpage.

Interdisciplinary Data Humanities Initiative

The Research Computing Center (RCC) has launched a new initiative, the Interdisciplinary Data Humanities Initiative. The goal of IDHI is to foster and encourage the presence of humanities, social sciences and arts (HSSA) research within our High Performance Compute Cluster systems. In other words, FSU has the tools to support data-driven humanities research. Developed through work with University Libraries and the Florida Digital Humanities Consortium, this new initiative provides specialized software, research support and teaching resources for all HSSA departments at FSU. Departments currently working with IHDI to create digital research in the humanities include history, political science, and English. The RCC will also provide traditional and HSSA workshops for topics such as intro to HPC, intro to Linux, intro to OpenRefine and more. Will Hanley, Professor of History, is one faculty member using these tools. Check out his work here: https://its.fsu.edu/article/making-history-accessible-online. For more information on how you can learn to use and access these tools, contact support@rcc.fsu.edu.

RCC Website Moves to New Location

In an effort to advance the visibility and availability of research technology at FSU, the Research Computing Center (RCC) website recently merged with the ITS website. RCC content can be found in the new “Research” section of the ITS website: its.fsu.edu/research. Here, researchers can peruse grant resources, review RCC policies and quickly request access to research technology services, such as the high performance compute cluster or archival storage. The main page also offers convenient access to RCC accounts, software documentation and research request forms.

Faculty Senate

Bridgett Birmingham
Faculty Senate president

This is my first semester as your Faculty Senate president, and I am enjoying getting to know the faculty on our campuses. In addition to all the normal challenges of Fall, first day attendance, introducing new students to lab work, departmental meetings, and policy changes, we have new legislative challenges on the horizon. Please be on the lookout for updates from the University as we learn how to navigate these challenges together.

The Faculty Senate continues to meet this fall on Zoom beginning September 20. Our meetings are open and all are welcome to attend. Details can be found at the Faculty Senate web page.

A special thanks to those of you that completed the Faculty Senate volunteer survey. Over 150 faculty get service experience on several committees that deal with graduate policy, university curriculum, sustainability initiatives, the honors program, and more. We are still in the process of filling committee assignments. If you have not been selected for a committee or service appointment, the typical reasons are that we tend to protect junior faculty and faculty that are new to the university. We also try to maintain a mix of faculty from the disciplines and some colleges and schools have more volunteers than others.

Carothers Speaker Series

On Monday, September 18, Dean Jing Wang, College of Nursing, gave a fascinating talk on digital precision health. Dean Wang’s ideas impact so many areas beyond nursing – social work, technology, and interior design, to name a few. Thank you, Dean Wang!

On Tuesday, November 14, Shayne McConomy, Teaching Faculty in Mechanical Engineering spoke about his success teaching through projects.

If you missed one of these lectures, or simply would like to listen again, you can find them on YouTube.

Make a commitment in 2024 to come have lunch with your FSU colleagues and learn about how your work might engage with your colleague’s work. On Tuesday, February 13, 2024, the series will host Melissa Radey, Agnes Flaherty Stoops Professor in Child Welfare, College of Social Work. On Tuesday, April 15, 2024, Mariana Fuentes, Associate Professor, Earth, Ocean, & Atmospheric Science, College of Arts and Sciences will be speaking. Save the dates and register HERE.

The Milton S. Carothers Faculty Lecture Series is the longest running, regularly occurring, interdisciplinary lecture series at Florida State University. Established in 1981 by the Rev. Carothers at the Presbyterian University Center (Westminster House), the series transitioned from the Faculty Luncheon Series to the Carothers Lecture Series in 2021 with an increased focus on interdisciplinary faculty research, community, and outreach.