Dear Colleagues,

The Faculty Standards Committee of the University Senate will hold two distinct forums on faculty promotion, tenure, and reappointment on Friday, April 8, 2022, via WebEx.  The purpose of the forums is to ensure that all faculty are aware of PTR and PR procedures and expectations at the university and have the opportunity to have their questions answered by the administration.

The Promotion, Tenure & Reappointment (PTR) program for tenure-track faculty will be held from 9:00-11:00 AM.  The program will begin in a group session with the Provost’s Office outlining PTR procedures at the University of Connecticut. This large group meeting will be followed by breakout sessions for participating schools/colleges led by Deans or their designees outlining the nuances of the PTR process specific to each school/college.

The Promotion and Reappointment (PR) program will be held from 1:00-2:30 PM and is for faculty who are eligible to use the non-tenure-track promotion and reappointment form (this covers clinical, in-residence, and extension [CIRE] faculty members and lecturers, as well as research professors).

Faculty and staff who plan to attend must register by April 6^th to attend by completing the appropriate survey.  Reservations can also be made via the Senate website.

Register for the PTR Forum (tenure-track) here.

Register for the PR Forum (non-tenure track) here.

CHERYL GALLI
OFFICE OF THE UNIVERSITY SENATE

Dear Colleagues,

The coming month is one of significance for many members of our community in their religious practices, including the observances of Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr, Passover, and Easter. As these holidays approach, we are sharing resources and reminders with the community to promote awareness of these observances and their potential effects on the academic activities of our students.

We believe that meaningful inclusion plays a critical role in the well-being of all members of the UConn community. In accordance with this mission, we advise faculty and staff to take dates of religious holidays into consideration when planning events or setting academic deadlines. The Provost’s Office, in partnership with the Office for Institutional Equity, Office for Diversity and Inclusion, and the Dean of Students Office, has created a webpage that includes information on key religious observances this semester. It also includes links to UConn’s policy on religious accommodations for students, faculty and staff, as well as resources to learn more about individual holidays. Please click here to visit the Religious Observances webpage.

As a reminder, faculty and instructors are expected reasonably to accommodate individual religious practices unless doing so would result in fundamental alteration of class objectives or undue hardship to the University’s legitimate business purposes. Such accommodations may include rescheduling an exam or giving a make-up exam, allowing a presentation to be made on a different date or assigning the student appropriate make-up work that is intrinsically no more difficult than the original assignment.

Students are responsible for making arrangements in advance to make up missed work. Students are also responsible for identifying potential conflicts with final examinations and must contact the Dean of Students Office for accommodations for final examinations.

Your attention to these observances and accommodations is an important part of supporting our University’s commitment to building and maintaining a welcoming and inclusive learning and work environment.

Sincerely,
Jeffrey

Jeffrey Shoulson
Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs

Dear Waterbury Campus Colleagues,

We are following up with updates on the next series of steps in the search for a new director of the UConn Waterbury Campus.

Many of you shared feedback over the past several weeks, including important qualities of the next permanent director, the most appropriate structure of the search, and potential search committee members.

As the Provost’s Office has previously shared, this will be a national search, and we have engaged Parker Executive Search to assist in this process. I have also named Indrajeet Chaubey, dean of the College of Agriculture, Health and Natural Resources, to chair the search committee. I am grateful for his leadership in this important search.

We have also assembled our search committee, listed below. This will also include student representation, which will be added as we confirm invitations with students.

• Indrajeet Chaubey (Search Chair), Dean and Director of the College of Agriculture, Health and Natural Resources
• Kelly Bartlett, Director, UConn Waterbury Office of Student Services
• Kimberly Cuevas, Associate Professor, Department of Psychological Sciences
• Vern Granger, Director of Undergraduate Admissions
• Tamara Kaliszewski, Assistant Professor In-Residence, Department of Allied Health Sciences
• Daniel Mercier, Director of Academic Services, UConn Avery Point
• Neil O’Leary, Mayor, City of Waterbury
• Claudia Pina, Clinical Case Manager, Waterbury Campus Mental Health Resource Center
• Letissa Reid, Associate Vice President, Office of Institutional Equity
• Melissa Rembish, Assistant Clinical Professor, School of Nursing
• Verna Ruffin, Superintendent of Schools, Waterbury Public Schools
• John Zack, Associate Clinical Professor, Department of Curriculum and Instruction

Feedback Opportunities

The Provost’s Office is hosting several listening sessions next week to seek your feedback on the search and the directorship. Additionally, you may submit your feedback via an anonymous survey and nominate candidates directly to Parker Executive Search.

Listening Sessions

• Tuesday, March 29, 2:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. (Students)
• Tuesday, March 29, 3:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. (Faculty)
• Wednesday, March 30, 8:30 a.m. – 9:30 a.m. (Open: Faculty, staff, students, community members)
• Wednesday, March 30, 9:30 a.m. – 10:30 a.m. (Staff)

If you wish to attend a listening session, please click on the link for your desired session above to register. You will then receive a registration confirmation email including the WebEx link for the session you select.

Feedback Survey

You may provide feedback on the position using the survey below.

• Feedback Survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/JWVWHSX

Candidate Nomination

To recommend a potential candidate to Parker Executive Search:

• Nominations: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/JYYJ2Z6

Your engagement in these next steps is critical to developing a candidate profile that will attract individuals with an ideal set of experiences and skills to lead the Waterbury Campus. Thank you for your participation in this process.

Sincerely,
Carl

Carl Lejuez
Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs

Dear Colleagues,

We appreciate the community’s engagement in our search for the next director of the Stamford Campus.

Your input will be an important consideration for the search committee in our next steps. As a reminder, the public presentation recordings and feedback surveys for all candidates are available online. You may access them at this link: https://provost.uconn.edu/stamford-finalists/. Please submit your feedback on candidates by 5 p.m. on Wednesday, March 16.

Sincerely,
Mark

Mark Overmyer-Velázquez
Chair, Stamford Campus Director Search Committee

Campus Director, UConn Hartford
Professor of History and Latinx Studies

 

Dear Colleagues,

I write to share an update on the spring Provost’s Awards. We are extending the deadline to 5 p.m. on Wednesday, March 23, 2022, for the following awards:

• Provost’s Outstanding Service Award
• Provost’s Awards for Excellence in Community Engaged Scholarship
• Alumni Faculty Excellence Awards

More information on each award can be found at https://provost.uconn.edu/events-and-recognition/awards/.

We recognize that this is always a busy time of the year, and particularly so this year. We hope extending this deadline allows ample time to submit nominations to recognize the outstanding work of your colleagues. Please feel free to share this update among your units and encourage the submission of nominations.

Please reach out to Kristi Henderson, Chief of Staff, if you have questions regarding this year’s awards: kristi.henderson@uconn.edu.

Sincerely,

Carl

Carl Lejuez

Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs

This message was sent to Stamford Campus faculty, staff, and students, and UConn academic leadership. 

 

Dear Colleagues,

I am pleased to announce that candidates have been selected as finalists for the Stamford Campus Director position.

The candidates will visit the Stamford and Storrs campuses next week. We encourage you to participate in forums throughout their visits, and share your feedback on each candidate in the provided surveys. This input will be carefully considered by the members of the search committee.

Visits start on Monday, March 7, and continue through Friday, March 11. We will announce each candidate one business day before their visit. The first candidate, who will visit Stamford on Monday, March 7, is Jennifer Orlikoff, currently serving as campus president for Potomac State College at West Virginia University  –  Keyser.

Information on candidates, including CVs, public forum meeting links, and feedback surveys will be available at https://provost.uconn.edu/stamford-finalists/.

Sincerely,
Mark

Mark Overmyer-Velázquez
Chair, Stamford Campus Director Search Committee

Campus Director, UConn Hartford
Professor of History and Latinx Studies

Dear Colleagues,

The middle of the semester is always a good time to assess progress personally and for our students. As we did in the fall at this time, I wanted to share a few resources for all instructors to utilize in their instructional plans, as an opportunity to review your students’ trajectory—along with your own—through the end of the semester. I appreciate the support of the Senate Executive Committee and leaders in the undergraduate and graduate student senates in pulling these materials together.

Formative feedback

 Mid-term formative feedback surveys can be useful tools for instructors to hear anonymously from their students on course materials, lectures, assessments, and other elements of course design. We encourage all instructors to implement a mid-term formative feedback survey in their courses. These surveys can be valuable resources to make mid-course adjustments, as well as to broaden student engagement. The Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning and the Office of Institutional Research and Effectiveness offer resources to develop and distribute formative feedback surveys. In all cases, these are designed to be private (for instructors’ personal use only, not to be shared with department heads or other administrators). If you are interested in utilizing formative feedback, you can begin with a resource guide prepared by CETL.

Mid-term grades

Sharing mid-term grades with your students is another important part of reviewing student progress, which can have positive impacts on your students’ engagement in coursework. University Senate By-Laws state that by the end of the sixth week of the semester, instructors shall submit midterm grades for students in 1000- and 2000-level courses who have earned less than a C, or U, or N grade up to that point.

In these challenging times, however, I encourage all instructors to share mid-term grades with their students in all levels. This feedback on progress will help students make adjustments and access resources as necessary to stay on track academically and to assess their trajectory in the course to make decisions earlier on potential withdrawals or pass-fail designations in courses. This is also an opportunity to refer students of concern to academic support resources like the Academic Achievement Center (AAC).

We are sharing guides here with different options to submit grades to PeopleSoft. Informing your students of their grades or posting mid-term grades in HuskyCT is helpful, but posting grades in PeopleSoft is necessary to ensure this information regarding student progress is available to staff at the University who provide academic support. Grade submission opened on Monday, February 21 and continues through Thursday, March 24. Instructors can submit grades three different ways into StudentAdmin:

• Manually into Student Admin utilizing these instructions
• Via an Excel file utilizing these instructions
• Via a direct feed from HuskyCT utilizing these instructions

For any instructors who have yet to administer any assessments in their course by which to determine a mid-term grade, now is a good time to do so to ensure you and your students know how they are progressing in the course and mastering the material.

Finally, I want to encourage faculty to be as considerate as possible, and exercise as much flexibility as possible, regarding make-ups for students who may report being ill.  Students are urged not to attend class when they are feeling ill and this health precaution extends to scheduled exams, as well.

As always, thank you for all you are doing.

Sincerely,
Jeffrey

Jeffrey Shoulson
Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs

Dear UConn Community,

We have reached an important milestone in the development of a new Common Curriculum. The Senate Curricula and Courses Committee has introduced a set of Common Curriculum Guidelines for consideration by the University Senate. The Senate has called a special meeting to be held on Feb. 28 to discuss and vote on these guidelines.

I encourage you to review these guidelines at this link and share your feedback on them with your Senator colleagues to be sure they are prepared to share the views of their constituents; any proposed changes would be made through the Senate’s discussion of proposed amendments. You may view Senate membership at this link.

This is the first of three documents that will be presented to the Senate this spring as it continues the process of introducing a new general education program. If the guidelines are approved, the next step will be for the Curricula and Courses Committee to draft an implementation plan that will include a fiscal impact report. This plan would then be presented to the Senate in April for approval, alongside corresponding updates to the Senate By-Laws, Rules, and Regulations.

The purpose of the Common Curriculum is to ensure that all UConn undergraduate students a) are literate in different ways of knowing, b) exposed to many kinds of knowledge beyond career preparation, and c) able to enter society and their professions with a strong sense of moral, ethical, and social responsibility. Students, faculty, and staff have devoted countless hours to this effort to re-envision general education at UConn, and we now look forward to the full Senate body weighing in on the proposal that has been generated.

Sincerely,
Carl

Carl Lejuez
Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs

02/10/2022

Dear Colleagues,

I am writing to share an update on the color-coded system for students across non-academic settings.

As you may recall, we started the semester in red for this color-coded system determined by the Division of Student Affairs. Given the carefully managed return of students to our campuses, it is no longer medically necessary to remain in red. Effective Friday morning (Feb. 11) at 6 a.m., the color-coded system for student activities, campus dining, residential life, and the Rec Center will be in orange. More information regarding the color-coded system and its current status is available here.

This shift from red to orange is specific to student non-academic settings such as guest presence in the residence halls, gathering sizes and travel for Club Sports and Student Activities, and in-person dining. Notably, this change to orange in non-academic settings is essentially equivalent to how we have been and are continuing to approach academic settings with masks still required inside in nearly all university spaces unless you are actively eating or drinking.

Thank you for all you have done to enable our return to in-person learning and activities this semester.

Sincerely,
Carl

Carl Lejuez
Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs

Dear Colleagues,

On behalf of UConn’s Life-Transformative Education (LTE) initiative, I am pleased to present the line-up of activities for the spring semester.

The spring series of events features an exciting line-up of guest speakers from other institutions and our own talented faculty and staff. It also includes the return of the LTE Cultivate workshop, on Feb. 25.

LTE Speaker Series: Dr. Rochelle Gutiérrez
“Mathematics, Passions, and Right Relations: How Identity Factors Into Our Work”
Friday, Feb. 18, 12 to 2 p.m. 

Dr. Gutiérrez is a Professor of Curriculum and Instruction at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Gutierrez’ scholarship focuses on issues of identity and power in mathematics education, paying particular attention to how race, class, and language affect teaching and learning. In this talk, Dr. Gutiérrez will expand on how her life growing up around powerful womxn and activists taught her to channel her passions into her academic and life work. She uses the case of mathematics as an example of how we are taught to simply accept the stories we are told and how a deep grounding in ourselves can help us challenge those stories and write new ones. This is also a great warm-up to the LTE Cultivate II workshop the following week.  

UConn LTE Cultivate II
Friday, Feb. 25, 11 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. 

The UConn LTE Cultivate workshop returns with a new slate of activities to inspire, develop, and empower all faculty and staff as Life-Transformative Education champions. The half-day workshop will include a wide variety of activities, including breakout sessions with focus on topics including mentoring, advising, service learning, and DEI principles; wellness activities; and a keynote conversation with Dr. Amelia Parnell, vice president for research at NASPA, Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education.  

Tell Us Your Story: A UConn LTE Panel
Monday, March 28, 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. 

Join us for this panel featuring UConn faculty and staff, sharing their experiences in infusing LTE principles into their interactions with students, from teaching practices to student mentoring and more.   

Featuring Dr. Shardé Davis, Assistant Professor, Communication; Fany Hannon, Director, Puerto Rican/Latin American Cultural Center (PRLACC); Micah Heumann, Director, Academic Center for Exploratory Students (ACES); and Dr. Hana Maruyama, Assistant Professor, History. 

All UConn faculty, staff, and students are welcome to attend any LTE event. Registration is required for these events, all of which will be hosted virtually. More information, including registration details, are available on the LTE website. We look forward to seeing you at LTE events throughout the spring!

Sincerely,
Michael

Michael Bradford
Vice Provost for Faculty, Staff, and Student Development