News from the Office of Faculty Development and Diversity

News from the Office of Faculty Development

and Diversity

2017-18 Year in Review

Dear Colleagues,

As the 2017-18 academic year comes to a close, we are sending our first newsletter to highlight several new initiatives, programs and events sponsored by our office.

We wanted to remind you that the President's Council of Cornell Women awarded our office a grant to support the Empowering Women in Science and Engineering Symposium on May 23. Cornell professors Julia Thom-Levy, Francine Blau and Barbara Knuth along with speakers from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and Vanderbilt University are participating in the day-long event.

We're pleased to announce that next year Mahzarin Banaji, the Richard Clark Cabot Professor of Social Ethics at Harvard, is coming to Cornell to speak on implicit bias. Her talk on February 11, 2019, will be cosponsored by OFDD, the Institute for the Social Sciences (ISS) and the Department of Psychology. More details to come later.

If there are other programs, speakers or events you would like the OFDD to sponsor or if you have suggestions, we hope you will complete a short survey.

Lori Sonken is our new communication and program manager. She came to us from the ISS and held several previous positions at Cornell. She will attend our events and you will see her name on emails.

Enjoy the summer!

Best,

Avery August

Vice Provost for Academic Affairs

Yael Levitte

Associate Vice Provost for Faculty

Development and Diversity

Avery August Named Vice Provost for Academic Affairs

Avery August, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor and Professor of Immunology in the College of Veterinary Medicine, was appointed Vice Provost for Academic Affairs starting January 1, 2018.

"Our faculty are the core of the university, and I hope to contribute to continuing to make Cornell an institution where faculty, particularly faculty who bring their diverse perspectives to our students, want to come and stay for their careers, " said August in a Cornell Chronicle story.

Working with Associate Vice Provost Yael Levitte, he oversees faculty recruitment, hiring strategies, and training for department chairs and associate deans. He also manages the faculty dual career program and the Provost's program for diversity hiring and is the Provost's liaison for the Faculty Committee on Program Review.

Making Diversity Data Transparent

Using tools developed by Institutional Research and Planning (IRP) , Cornell discloses race and gender data about its students, faculty and staff. For example, the diversity dashboards show that 46 percent of undergraduates in fall 2017, were either a minority or an underrepresented minority. During the same time period, 33 percent of tenured faculty were female.

IRP also created the diversity pipeline identifying the top 50 academic institutions graduating the most number of Ph.Ds by discipline, race and gender. Using data from the National Center for Education Statistics, the program is helpful in faculty recruitment efforts.

“Search committee members often ask which institutions have the most diverse Ph.D. candidate pool. Now they can see for themselves and target those universities in their search plans,” said Yael Levitte, associate vice provost for faculty development and diversity.

Cornell Joins National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity

This spring Cornell became an institutional member of the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity , a nationally recognized, independent organization providing online career development and mentoring resources. The subscription entitles all faculty and academic staff access to programs to increase research and writing productivity and improve work-life balance.

There's still time to register !

Grants Supporting Women in the Life Sciences

Ronald and Joan Schwartz, Cornell Class of '65

Renata Ivanek, Epidemiology

Jeongmin Song, Microbiology and Immunology

Renata Ivankek and Jeongmin Song, both in the College of Veterinary Medicine, received the annual Schwartz Research Fund for Women in Life Sciences, endowed by Ronald H. Schwartz '65 and Joan Poyner Schwartz '65.

The annual grants support female life scientists engaged in innovative and creative research.

“We are grateful to the Schwartz’s for their continued commitment to and passion for funding faculty who are looking to take risks in innovative areas of research” said Yael Levitte, associate vice provost for faculty development and diversity.

Events and Programs

Talking with Policy Makers About Your Research was the topic of a March 20th panel discussion featuring Joel Malina, Vice President for University Relations, and professors Kathleen Rasmussen and Art DeGaetano.

Erika Styger (left), Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò and Kim Haines-Eitzen are 2017-18 Knowledge Matters fellows. They are using multiple media, including pecha kucha, blogs and comics, to communicate research findings.

OFDD sponsors a range of events designed to enrich faculty's experience at Cornell. Listed on our website under Upcoming Events , OFDD offers mentoring sessions for junior faculty, convenes meetings over breakfast and lunch with faculty sharing special interests and concerns, such as women in STEM, and provides training sessions on navigating career challenges, conducting effective search practices, running successful committee meetings and talking with Congress, among other topics. If there's a program you would like us to hold, please email ofdd@cornell.edu or complete the short survey .