Message from the Office for Faculty Success |
Greetings Colleagues,
Is anyone asking where did the semester go? In some ways I am intensely cognizant of each and every day of 2020, while in other ways the time seems to have “Zoomed” by. One of my annual rituals is to reflect on the year behind me, focusing and celebrating my accomplishments and highpoints while making peace with my shortcoming and not-so-great moments. Should this be a practice you share, I’d like to offer a few of the items UNT faculty might add to their list of accomplishments or moments to be proud of.
- Transitioned my courses from a face-to-face format to an online format.
- Learned how to use Zoom, change my virtual backgrounds and monitor the chat—while teaching.
- Relocated to begin a new academic position and oriented to my new environment virtually.
- Supported and mentored students as they experienced the impact of the pandemic.
- Developed virtual means for routine academic tasks (advising, office hours, group work).
- Incorporated COVID-19 content into my courses to help my students understand how it related to our field of study.
- Mentored new students and faculty virtually.
- Created new ways of engaging with stakeholders and community partners.
- Moved UNT-sponsored clinics virtually in ways that were HIPAA compliant.
- Continued to engage in scholarship and professional service activities.
Your work is always appreciated but has been especially valued during these recent months. Your individual and collective contributions have made an impact on your colleagues, students and our UNT community. I hope you will make time to reflect on your professional accomplishments this past year while also taking time for self-care and rejuvenation.
Kind regards,
Bertina Combes
Vice Provost for Faculty Success
|
|
Upcoming Events in Faculty Success |
|
Click on an event below to learn more and register. Be sure to check the
|
|
 |
|
|
|
Jan
11-12
By Invitation Only
|
|
|
|
Call for Input – Send us your photos! |
|
Faculty Success is looking for photos of faculty engaged in their work this semester. If you have pictures of you conducting your research, teaching or performing other acts of service during the pandemic, please send them to us at faculty.success@unt.edu.
This photo was sent to us from Cheryl Croall in Technical Communication.
|
|
|
New Faculty (20-21 Cohort) Mid-Year Check-In |
|
|
|
We want to know: How are you doing?
Please join us for a town hall hosted by the Office for Faculty Success for new faculty to see how your first year is going. Register today!
|
|
Anti-Bias and Cultural Awareness Program
|
|
Thank you for a successful implementation of our inaugural semester of the Anti-Bias and Cultural Awareness Program. All of our live webinars were well attended and all five options of the program have been utilized. We will continue providing this same level of choice for the spring semester. Please remember the three-hour required engagement is due by December 31. You can load your certificates to the Anti-Bias and Cultural Awareness Program in Bridge. Be on the lookout for the Spring 2021 engagement opportunities!
|
|
|
|
Nandika D'Souza, UNT Regents Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, and her lab received a $302,285 National Science Foundation grant in 2018 to develop a new building insulation product that is stronger, safer and more sustainable than the conventional polyurethane-based products currently used.
The team found that by mixing corn-based polylactic acid with cellulose fibers and using supercritical carbon-dioxide, they were able to create a foam that was not only safer than the conventional insulation, but also compostable and energy efficient.
|
|
Dr. Ana P. Alonso
Ana Paula Alonso was recently awarded UNT's Early Career Award for Research and Creativity. She is Associate Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, and the Director of the BioAnalytical Facility.
She built a successful research program supported by over $9,000,000 in total funding. Dr. Alonso was awarded three-year predoctoral research fellowship and two-year postdoctoral fellowship from the French National Institute of Agronomical Research. She was the Director of the Targeted Metabolomics Laboratory and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2016. Dr. Alonso uses innovative approaches to address Global Challenges related to food and energy security. She is seen as an emerging leader in the production of highly-valuable fatty acids using alternative crops.
|
|
|
|
Dr. Wen’s research interests include food service management, food safety and food allergy in restaurants, food safety risk communication, and hospitality education. Dr. Wen has published her research articles in various international peer review journals and has presented her research at both domestic and international conferences.
|
|
Black Faculty Network
The Black Faculty Network (BFN) is a mentoring program that focuses on the recruitment and retention of Black faculty at the University of North Texas.The BFN includes full-time tenure-track and tenured faculty as well as lecturers of African descent at UNT. To achieve our aims, we provide career and social support at every stage of their career. With respect to career support, we offer opportunities for networking and focused discussions on topics relevant to faculty members’ career development within the university. To address faculty members’ need for social connection and support, we hold gatherings so that they can interact with other Black faculty and establish relationships in an effort to limit feelings of isolation. Ultimately, the goal of the group is to facilitate an increase in the total number of Black faculty at UNT by providing support as Black faculty move through the academic ranks.
|
Target Goals and Outcomes |
Goals:
- Facilitate UNT Black faculty retention through academic and psychosocial support.
- Enhance the scholarship of Black faculty through structured research writing groups.
- Provide a forum for professional networking and career support for Black faculty and Black graduate students with a focus on enhancing retention among each group.
- Develop informal mentoring relationships with Black graduate students.
Outcomes:
- Faculty will participate in topical monthly gatherings, which will focus on enhancing scholarship and pedagogy.
- Faculty will maintain informal mentoring relationships that will include innovative peer-mentoring relationships amongst Black faculty to promote both academic and social integration for participants.
- Faculty will participate in a writing group which includes an on-line format for maintaining accountability toward participants’ annual scholarly goals as well as in-person meetings to block time in their day for writing and offer psychosocial support.
|
|
|
|
Call for Faculty Advocates |
|
|
|
Do you want to help make a real difference in the lives of other faculty members? Enjoy working with a diverse range of people? Becoming a faculty advocate may be for you!
As a faculty advocate, you will develop skills that will contribute to your own professional development in the following areas:
- Communication
- Teamwork
- Positive and balanced work ethic
- Networking with faculty advocates and mentors
- Organization and planning
- Problem-solving, analysis and investigation
- Leadership
- Ability to influence, persuade and negotiate
|
|
- Service-Learning
- Global Learning
- Undergraduate Research
- Writing Intensive
- Capstone
- Collaborative Projects
- Learning Communities
- Internship
- Common Intellectual Experiences
- First-Year Seminar
If you answered yes, then you may be missing out on an opportunity to help students connect what they learn in your class to what it means for their future by recognizing students’ work as a micro-credential to appear on their learner record. Contact UNTCareerConnect@unt.edu to learn about creating a micro-credential for your class!
|
|
News from the UNT Libraries |
|
UNT Libraries Digital Newspapers Collections Reaches a New Milestone!
The Texas Digital Newspaper Program on The Portal to Texas History has reached 8 million newspaper pages. New titles added include The Mount Vernon Optic-Herald, The Galveston Tribune, The Denton-Record Chronicle, The Matagorda County Tribune, The Alvin Sun, The Henderson Daily News, and The Hudspeth County Herald. To read more about the coverage of topics and timeframes represented in our recent additions please read our Digital Newspaper Milestone news story.
Willis Library Winter Intersession Hours
On December 12, Willis Library will begin its Winter Intersession Hours. Hours of operation will be Monday through Friday, 10:00am-6:00pm and closed on the weekends. We will be closed for the Winter Break from Thursday, December 24-Sunday, January 3. For more information on hours for the UNT Libraries, please consult our Summary of Hours page.
|
|
Building Student Resilience |
|
Resilience, in its literal definition, means being able to withstand or quickly bounce back from challenging situations. In psychological terms, resilience means knowing how to react to adversity, trauma or stress. It means knowing how to acknowledge these roadblocks, address them and adapt to them.
The American Psychological Association recommends several ways we can work to build resilience. The most important ones include:
- Having a strong network of supportive people who will listen to our problems.
- Working toward goals by focusing on small steps. Moving forward toward a solution reminds us that we have control over what is happening.
- Developing self-confidence. The more we are able to bounce back from setbacks, the more we will know that we will be able to do it the next time we face a hurdle.
- Keeping things in perspective is essential for faculty and students. Simply put: bad things happen. Life changes, and it is important to resist the temptation to catastrophize. A resilient person is able to acknowledge that a setback is not the end of the world.
|
|
As this semester is coming to an end, I would like to thank you for taking the time to read Chief’s Corner and learn more about our community-oriented police department. Our department strives to provide members of the UNT community with information that will not only keep them safe, but also promote a safer environment across campus.
One way that we, as police officers, can also promote a safe and supportive environment is by adhering to best practices. Our department trains with Fair and Impartial Policing, LLC, the top provider of implicit bias awareness training for law enforcement in North America. Fair and Impartial Policing educates officers on the effects of implicit bias. They help give us the information and skills we need to reduce and manage biases.
We sent a member of our command staff, Lt. Washington, to a train-the-trainer class. Having an in-house trainer will help us reach our goal of sending every member of our department to this class by early January.
While the Fair and Impartial Policing curriculum is new, the subject of recognizing and addressing biases is not new for our department. Lt. Washington has taught classes on bias-based policing and implicit bias for several years. This focus helps us support the inclusive environment at UNT so that we may all feel safe and secure as part of this community.
If you want to know more about our training or if you have a subject you would like to see us address in the spring semester, please feel free to reach out to our Community Relations Officer, David Causey, at david.causey@unt.edu or 940-369-7691. I encourage you to follow @UNTPolice on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to learn more proactive safety tips. |
|
News from International Affairs |
|
Study Abroad Workshop:
Designing a New Faculty Led Program
The UNT Study Abroad Office will be hosting two virtual workshops this spring for anyone who is interested in designing a faculty-led program. Register today!
|
|
UNT Passport Office
Starting December 3, the UNT Passport Office will be open for scheduled appointments on Mondays and Thursdays from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. To learn more or request an appointment, visit: https://studyabroad.unt.edu/passport-office. |
|
COACHE Survey Launching February 2021 |
|
What is the COACHE survey?
Why are these surveys important?
The provost is fully committed to using the results to improve the workplace for faculty. These surveys are the first steps of a multi-year process intended to identify actionable policies and practices.
Who will be asked to participate in the COACHE process?
All full-time faculty (tenure-system, lecturers, clinical faculty and librarians).
|
|
Stay in Touch with Faculty Success |
|
|
|
Our office is responsible for and supports numerous programs to ensure that faculty at all levels are successful in their teaching, scholarly, and leadership endeavors.
We encourage you to explore our website for additional information on specific programming or contact us directly to learn more about the numerous opportunities available to UNT faculty. We are here to foster your success.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
