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Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs and Diversity | February 2025

The Brown School Honors Black History Month 2025

This Black History Month, we celebrate Strength in Labor: The Legacy and Future of African American Contributions with a series of lectures and panels and the unveiling of the Brown School Land and Labor Acknowledgement.

Learn more

Faculty Success Program Tuition Support (NCFDD) – Apply Now!

The Office of the Provost will sponsor Danforth Campus assistant and associate professors to participate in the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity (NCFDD) Faculty Success Program. We are accepting applications for Summer 2025 until April 15, 2025. Please send your name, department/school, rank, and a brief justification (up to 200 words) to vpfad@wustl.edu. 

Faculty Achievement Award Nominations Sought

Nominations are being accepted for WashU’s Arthur Holly Compton Faculty Achievement Award and the Carl and Gerty Cori Faculty Achievement Award. The nomination packet should include a nomination letter detailing the rationale for the nomination; the nominee’s curriculum vitae; and three supporting letters. Nomination deadline February 7, 2025.

 More details and additional application instructions. 

Professional Development Funding for Teaching, Research, and Practice Faculty

The Office of the Provost provides up to $1000 of professional development funding to each full-time, non-tenure-track faculty member on the Danforth Campus. First, approach your department to use the funding they have available. If you need additional funding after that, fill out the professional development reimbursement form, and obtain approval before you travel or pay registration fees.

Nic Koziolek, Teaching, Research, and Practice Faculty Fellow and Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, is offering free professional coaching to TRP faculty this spring. To sign up, please email him at nkoziolek@wustl.edu.

ADHD Caregiver Discussion Group

The HR Child and Family Care program is facilitating a discussion group for employees who have children with ADHD. Meetings are held in a hybrid format. Participants discuss topics families are struggling with and experts come to talk to the group. On February 25, Natalie McCarthy from Missouri Parents Act (MPACT) will be speaking on the topic, “Understanding the Evaluation Process.”  Interested employees can register to join the next session by emailing Amy Dunnegan at FamilyCare@wustl.edu.

HR is also looking to start new discussion groups to support employees in caregiver roles. Topics could include parenting, caring for a child with autism or other special needs, older adult care, etc. If you have a topic you would like to explore, please contact Amy Dunnegan, Child and Family Care Facilitator at FamilyCare@wustl.edu.

Assembly Series presents Dark Waters: The Environmental Legal Battle Exposing Corporate Coverup in the name of Public Health

The New York Times called Robert Bilott, “The lawyer who became DuPont’s worst nightmare.” Bilott, a distinguished environmental attorney, shares the unsettling story of his epic legal battle against DuPont and how he exposed corporate coverup and massive chemical contamination of unprecedented scale and scope, now impacting virtually every living thing on this planet. Drawing from his book, "Exposure: Poisoned Water, Corporate Greed, and One Lawyer’s Twenty-Year Battle Against Dupont," Bilott takes audiences through the unforgettable legal drama about malice, manipulation, and perseverance against the failings of environmental regulation.  

 April 7, 2025 (5 p.m.) at Graham Chapel.



Register here

Monthly Community Mindfulness Sessions

Join certified mindfulness teachers from the WashU Mindfulness Science & Practice group for community sessions that include guided mindfulness meditation practice and discussion on practice-related themes. Brief micro practices will be offered that you can use throughout the day in a moment of challenge or stress throughout the semester. Open to all faculty, staff, students, leaders, and community members.

• February 14 (11:30 a.m.-12:15 p.m.) at Somers Hall 249
• March 21 (11:30 a.m.-12:15 p.m.) at Somers Hall 249
• April 18 (11:30 a.m.-12:15 p.m.) at Somers Hall 249
• May 9 (11:30 a.m.-12:15 p.m.) at Somers Hall 249
• May 16 (9:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.) Retreat-Style Practice - Location TBD

Additional Events and Opportunities

• Application Open for the Distinguished Visiting Scholars Program: The Distinguished Visiting Scholars Program brings to WashU individuals who have distinguished themselves as leaders and innovators in the academy, business, or in other fields of endeavor. Learn more and apply to the program here.

• Support for Growing Families - BenefitBump: Eligible faculty, staff, postdocs, and clinical fellows now have access to BenefitBump, a resource for growing families to help navigate the expected and unexpected logistics of welcoming a child – family planning, healthy pregnancy, fostering, adoption, work-life integration, and more. Learn more here or call 888-286-7314.

• Love Data?: Are you someone who presents data to people? Are you trying to improve how your message is received and internalized by your audience? If so, there is a fantastic event on campus next week that will support increasing your data visualization skills! As part of Love Data Week, Dr. Stephanie Evergreen, an internationally renowned expert in data visualization, will be on campus delivering a keynote talk on Thursday, February 13, from 2:15-3:45 p.m. at Emerson Auditorium and via zoom. Registration for this free event is here. A reception will follow in Frick Forum from 4-6 p.m. 

• Douglass Day: A collaborative digital transcribe-a-thon in honor of Frederick Douglass Day will take place on Feb. 14 from 11 a.m.-4 p.m. in room 142 of Olin Library. Participants are encouraged to bring their laptops. A selection of Haitian dishes will be provided for lunch.

• Free NCFDD Membership and Programming: Claim your free membership to the National Center for Faculty Development & Diversity (NCFDD). Learn more about this free membership, available to all WashU faculty, graduate students, postdocs, and trainees. Plus, the NCFDD programming calendar is live and visible upon joining NCFDD.

• Faculty Senate and Provost Office Launch WIDE Speaker Series: Provost Beverly Wendland, Faculty Senate Chair Dennis Barbour, and Vice Provost Vijay Ramani, along with a review committee of faculty from both campuses have launched a faculty-driven speaker series, WashU Ideas, Discourse and Exploration (WIDE), which offers the WashU community the chance to celebrate the value of open dialogue while engaging with a range of insightful scholars to promote personal growth and learning in the context of complex topics. The WIDE committee will continue to review proposals on a rolling basis until program funds are expended, so we encourage faculty with ideas for projects that align with the goals of WIDE to submit a proposal.

• Federal Grants: This WashU research site has the latest information on federal research.

SPOTLIGHT: Environmental Research & Creativity Week

The newly launched Center for the Environment is gearing up for Environmental Research & Creativity Week, February 24-28. This series of events builds on the success of last year's kickoff week. They'll be celebrating and showcasing the breadth of exciting environmental research and creative practice of the WashU community. They have a truly exciting and impactful week planned including an environmental research symposium, lab and studio crawl, faculty book celebrations, and several guest speakers.

Explore the full calendar