Inspiring inquiry: The evolution of the FGCU Scholar Series | | Members of the Bower School of Music Saxophone Quartet describe their piece prior to their performance during the Scholar Series: Student Edition. | | |
The FGCU Scholar Series enhances the visibility of the diverse forms of scholarship taking place across campus by providing a forum to gather and engage in discussion. Established in Spring 2022, the series has since expanded into multiple editions to highlight the breadth of scholarly activity within the university community.
Faculty Edition
The Faculty Edition takes place on the last Wednesday of each month at the University Library’s DataViz Wall, bringing together faculty, students, and community members for lunch and conversation. The featured scholar rotates college and department to highlight the myriad forms scholarship takes. To date, the Scholar Series has featured 30 different scholars.
Student Edition
Launched in Fall 2024, the Student Edition occurs once each semester in the same venue and features afternoon snacks. With the tagline “Students inspiring students,” the Student Scholar Series invites presenters to share their thought processes and how they overcome challenges faced in the scholarly process.
| |  | The most recent Student Scholar Series, held in fall 2025, featured the Bower School of Music's Saxophone Quartet, Woodwind Quintet, and Brass Quintet. | "By hearing about the scholarly journey from their peers, we hope other students will feel empowered to engage in research as a high-impact practice." | |
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The area of the DataViz Wall was overflowing with students, faculty, staff, and external guests who engaged with and applauded the student performers. By hearing about the scholarly journey from their peers, we hope other students will feel empowered to engage in research as a high-impact practice.
Visit the Library Events page to learn about upcoming Scholar Series events.
| Have you seen a faculty member or academic team exhibiting academic excellence and going the extra mile for student success? Let us know! Click here to submit your story. | | |
THIS WEEK! Provost's Seminar Series with
Dr. J. Raymond DePaulo from Johns Hopkins University
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Canvas Quicktip 10
Save Time and Boost Student Success with Canvas Gradebook Messaging
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Canvas Gradebook’s “Message Students Who” feature is a powerful time-saver that also boosts student success. Instead of emailing students one by one, faculty can quickly reach specific groups—such as those who haven’t submitted an assignment, scored below a certain threshold, or earned full marks—with just a few clicks. This targeted communication helps students feel seen and supported, reinforcing accountability and motivation. By streamlining outreach, instructors spend less time managing emails and more time focusing on teaching, while students receive timely, personalized feedback that can make a real difference in their performance. Click to Learn to Use the “Message Students Who” feature in Canvas.
| | Missed a tip? Bookmark Digital Learning's Canvas QuickTip Archive and access expert guidance whenever you need a refresh to use Canvas more efficiently and effectively. CLICK to browse the Archive. | | |
Mark your calendars for this FGCU Eagle excellence tradition!
More details coming soon.
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Internship Week - Spring 2026
February 2 - February 6
Faculty, please share this opportunity with your students.
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RSVP via Eagle Link is strongly encouraged. Faculty and staff are also welcome to attend any events throughout the week! Please visit bit.ly/InternshipEvents to
view all of the events and RSVP.
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Community Partner Announcement | Lee Health’s 2026 Community Health Survey. A key component of Lee Health's 2026 Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA), the 2026 Community Health Survey will be open January 6 through March 3. It is a brief, primarily digital survey designed to gather direct community input on health needs, barriers to care, and local priorities. Community feedback is critical to ensuring the CHNA accurately reflects lived experiences and helps guide future programs, services, and investments across our region. Please, scan the QR code or use this link to participate.
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Career Advancement Assistance Program
The Office of Academic Affairs is pleased to announce the Career Advancement Assistance Program. The purpose of the Career Advancement Assistance Program is to provide time for faculty members to engage meaningfully in activities that yield outputs and impacts enhancing FGCU’s scholarly impact and timely promotion of faculty members.
- Faculty categories included in this initiative are those on the professor and instructor tracks. The Career Advancement Assistance Program partially relieves teaching obligations to provide time for scholarly, research, or career development endeavors. During the Career Advancement Assistance Program, faculty teaching load and/or other assignments will be reduced, and no overload teaching will be permitted.
- The number of awards is contingent on the availability of funding through the Provost’s office.
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The deadline for the Fall 2026 Career Advancement semester is Monday, February 16, 2026. Please submit your application in its entirety to Julie Leyden (jleyden@fgcu.edu).
Access the application cover page and detailed information about the program here:
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The Lucas Center Symposium on Teaching & Learning
A Celebration of Passionate Teaching
Tuesday, February 17 & Wednesday, February 18, 2026
You’re invited to join us for this year’s Lucas Center Symposium on Teaching & Learning, a two-day celebration of the dedication and care that educators bring to their classrooms every day. This year’s Symposium shines a spotlight on the tremendous time, effort, and emotional energy invested in teaching and in cultivating meaningful relationships with students. Together, we’ll honor the work that makes transformational learning possible at Florida Gulf Coast University. Through two days of interactive sessions, engaging presentations, and collaborative conversations, you will discover effective, easy-to-replicate, and low-cost strategies that promote student success. Sessions will feature teaching demonstrations, panel and roundtable discussions, and explorations of current research and innovative practices in higher education. We hope you’ll join us in learning, connecting, reflecting and celebrating passionate teaching. The Symposium is open to all FGCU community members; click here to register. If for any reason the above hyperlink does not work, please use the following direct link: https://fgcu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_3TMQwhw9dZBZ77M
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Upcoming Talk: Pixar in a Box: The Math Behind the Movies
With welcoming remarks by Provost Thorne at 4:45 p.m.
We are excited to invite you to an upcoming talk offered through a collaboration between the FGCU Mathletes Circle, the Department of Mathematics, the College of Arts & Sciences (CAS), and the College of Engineering. The talk is open to FGCU faculty, students, community members, families, and K–12 students. Our speaker, Dr. Tony DeRose, spent 23 years as a Senior Scientist at Pixar Animation Studios and is a pioneer in geometric modeling and animation. His work has helped shape iconic films such as The Incredibles, Finding Nemo, and Brave. In his presentation, “Pixar in a Box: The Math Behind the Movies,” Dr. DeRose will explore how mathematics underpins storytelling, creativity, and technology, offering students and the broader community a tangible bridge between discovery and practice.
Registration: Please register yourself and any family members using the following link: https://forms.gle/xV4WgpLUkpA2QHoJA. Classroom location details will be emailed to registered participants.
Organized by: Tanya Huffman, Dr. Cijy Sunny, Dr. Chuck Lindsey, Julie Rose, Director, WCE Student Support Services, U.A. Whitaker College of Engineering.
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Apply for Grant-in-Aid Program!
🎓📚The application is open now 📚🎓
FGCU is offering awards for the 2026-2027 academic year to support employees in advancing their education! Whether you're a Support Personnel (SP), Administrative/Professional (AP), or Faculty member, this is your chance to take your learning to the next level. Read more about Grant-in-Aid and apply here.
| | Dendritic Institute for Human-Centered AI and Data Science | | |
The FGCU AI Academy offers a series of interactive, hands-on learning opportunities designed to empower our campus community with practical AI knowledge and skills. These sessions support FGCU’s ongoing efforts to promote responsible, informed, and effective engagement with AI across academic and professional contexts. For Fall 2026, we are offering the following academy programs: Teaching with AI, which equips educators to integrate GenAI into the teaching process through prompt engineering and instructional design, and AI Literacy, a foundational introduction to AI for daily and professional use. Each course is offered twice to maximize access and accommodate diverse schedules. Click to visit the FGCU AI Academic Programs website for full details, dates, and registration.
| | Office of Research & Sponsored Programs (ORSP) | | |
SciENcv Update
NIH and NSF now require that the PI and all Key Personnel generate their Biosketches and Current & Pending Support documents for every proposal submission through SciENcv. They also require an ORCID iD to be linked to SciENcv.
If you have not yet signed up for an ORCID iD number, please do so as soon as possible to avoid any delays at the time of proposal submission. If you have not yet created a SciENcv account to maintain your Biosketch and Current & Pending, ORSP suggests that you do so now.
There are several ways to log in to SciENcv; however, the most efficient method is through login.gov. If you do not already have a login.gov account, you should first create one using your FGCU email address and then use it to set up your SciENcv account.
To create an ORCID iD, go to this link and sign up where indicated. If you already have your SciENcv and ORCID ID accounts, the SciENcv site will prompt you to link the accounts.
ORSP is aware of ongoing issues and delays in responses from the associated help desks. Please contact ORSP early so we can assist you with generating Biosketches and Current & Pending Support documents that are compliant with grant submission requirements.
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Required Training for NSF Submissions
The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) has required training starting December 2, 2025. The new requirements set forth in NSF Important Notice No. 149 will take effect.
What you need to know:
- Proposals submitted before December 2, 2025, including those submitted during the recent lapse in appropriations, are not subject to those requirements originally set to take effect on October 10, 2025.
- As of December 2, 2025, such new certifications are required at the time of proposal submission within the Cover Sheet, Biographical Sketch, and Current and Pending (Other) Support forms. These include new certifications related to:
- Completion of research security training by all senior/key personnel; and
- An institution of higher education’s status regarding contracts or agreements with any Confucius Institute.
- Organizations are required to provide supporting documentation, including copies of grants, contracts, and agreements, upon request by NSF.
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You are instructed to take this course, download and save your completion certificate and provide it to ORSP_preaward@fgcu.edu. This certificate must be uploaded with your proposal to NSF.
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To assist research organizations and investigators, NSF has published a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) web page summarizing the new requirements, certification procedures, and relevant timelines. Access the FAQs here.
Training can be done using the following link and takes 45-60 minutes: https://www.secure-center.org/ctm.
If you have questions, please reach out to ORSP.
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Application Deadlines
There are posted deadlines for ORSP applications. For time-sensitive opportunities, ORSP will attempt to accommodate requests but cannot guarantee submission unless the following are met:
For FGCU to meet sponsor requirements and provide added value to each proposal, the following standard internal deadlines have been established for electronic and paper submissions (these lead times do not include time required by the relevant unit(s) for their review/approval):
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Five (5) business days (days when FGCU business operations are open) prior to submission deadline: The final complete budget, additional administrative materials, and draft narrative are due to ORSP.
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Fourteen (14) business days are required for subrecipient documentation when FGCU is the prime for the proposal.
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Two (2) business days prior to submission deadline: The final complete proposal is due to ORSP, including the final proposal narrative. Final changes between the two deadlines are limited to tweaking of the narrative that has no impact upon the budget and other administrative documents.
The deadlines are in place so that last minute errors/warnings can be addressed in advance of the sponsor’s deadlines. If error/warnings are received close to the sponsor deadline and cannot be adjusted, applications may not be submitted if we are not able to remedy the issue(s).
More information can be found at:
https://www.fgcu.edu/academics/research/files/orsp-deadlines.pdf
| FGCU Institutional Review Board (IRB) Announcement | | |
In accordance with the IRB regulations and FGCU IRB Guidelines, IRB approval must be obtained BEFORE any research projects involving human subjects may proceed. The Board cannot retroactively approve the collection of data which falls under our definition of research. However, the regulations recognize that there are instances where data are collected without the intention to conduct human subject research.
To approve the use of these data, the IRB will evaluate the data collection process to ensure it meets the same ethical and regulatory standards required for any research involving human subjects, including the requirement for informed consent. If the IRB determines that the data were not collected in accordance with these standards, the Board will NOT approve the use of these data.
The IRB’s role is to provide ethical and regulatory oversight for research involving human participants, safeguarding their rights and welfare while also supporting the integrity of the research, the research team members, and the interests of the University.
For detailed guidance on conducting research with human subjects, please refer to the FGCU IRB guidelines or contact the IRB office.
Questions? Please email Sherry Alexander at sralexander@fgcu.edu.
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University Library
Scholar Series: January 28, 2026
| | United Campus Ministries in collaboration with the Office of the President at FGCU invites all faculty and staff to an appreciation luncheon on February 23, 2026, at 12:00 p.m., in AB 9, Room 138. | |
Guest speaker Kristoffer Doura is an entrepreneur, motivational speaker, former NFL player, and current adjunct faculty member at FGCU. He will share an inspirational message entitled "Faithfulness in the Quiet Work."
Please RSVP by February 17 here.
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Faculty Senate and Academic Affairs
All faculty are invited to attend the Faculty Spring Jam Session on March 27, 4:00–7:00 p.m., at the FGCU Boardwalk. Come enjoy a fun afternoon of live music, open mic, and karaoke, and connect with colleagues in a relaxed setting.
Interested in performing? Sign-Up for Performers, click here.
Just attending? RSVP for attendance here. Please RSVP so we can plan accordingly.
| | OPPORTUNITIES FOR YOUR STUDENTS | | | | |
