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December 1, 2023, Friday Update
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December 1, 2023
Friday Update |
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Good afternoon, colleagues. Here is the update from Academic Affairs.
Before, during, and after the recent town halls and other meetings with faculty and instructional academic staff, I’ve been asked what we can do to be more student centered. I simply say, “Ask them!”
For a recent deans’ meeting, I worked with the Student Association VP for Academic Affairs to identify students to participate in a panel discussion on their UWM experience. Key takeaways from the session are below. I think these notes provide concrete, tangible, and tactical things that instructors can do for our students to feel more welcomed, be more engaged, and hopefully, increase student success.
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Engaging Instructors for Student Success
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Set aside classroom time to meet professors. Some students are scared to put themselves out there, and this is a way for students to get to know instructors and create connections.
- Practice in the classroom allows for more conversation and discussion, which helps to create a climate where students can contribute.
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Encourage dialogue through questions in the class that facilitate conversations.
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Office hours are stigmatized as “for students who are struggling.” Welcome students and encourage them to stop by to see you; make office hours something that everyone should do.
- Reach out to students to encourage them to attend for help or just to connect.
- Provide bonus points to attend one or more office hours, which encourages attendance at coffee hours and tutoring.
- Allow for Zoom/Teams office hours for greater accessibility.
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Instructors can communicate with students via the Canvas Inbox (rather than just UWM email); students may also view the Canvas “To-Do” list, which collects all the due dates in students’ courses, so please create assignments in Canvas with correct due dates (even paper assignments you’ll collect in class can be recorded in Canvas).
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Increasing Student Engagement in Research
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Promote undergraduate research more-- the way we promote sports events.
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- Encourage participation in the SURF program (Support for Undergraduate Research Fellows).
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Advertise undergraduate research at first year bridge, orientation, and during freshman year (all 101 classes, for example), with specific ideas on how students can engage in research opportunities.
- Instructors can share more about undergraduate research in classes, emphasizing its benefits.
- Utilize student events to advertise undergraduate research.
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Creating Caring Campus Community and Advancing Learning
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- Emphasize collaboration over competition in the classroom. Too much competition creates a negative environment, whereas a more communal environment in the classroom promotes student success.
- TAs and Professors should pay more attention to all students! Focusing on those who better understand the material leaves those who don’t understand feeling demoralized.
- Be aware of mental health needs and be able to refer students to the right resources.
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Creating a sense of community within the classroom, major, and college helps students feel more comfortable, included, and more able to reach out and stay safe.
- Encourage/create opportunities for students to have a presence in the college to help create a sense of community.
- All colleges should hold welcome events.
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- UWM has great resources for students and it’s important to help others learn about them!
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Ryo Amano (Mechanical Engineering) received $975,000 from the Department of Energy for a Bipartisan Infrastructure Law grant. He will collaborate with several organizations in Wisconsin and Illinois to expand the energy-saving program throughout the Midwest region.
Anne Widmayer’s (Arts and Humanities) second academic book, “Gender and Emotion in Eighteenth-Century Britain: Raging Women and Crying Men,” was published by Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment in November.
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The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel recently ran a story on Professor Emerit Swarnjit Arora (Economics), and the extraordinary assistance he has provided to Indian international students over the course of his 46-year career at UWM. His acts of kindness in supporting students who have moved far from home to a new environment have continued into his retirement. Swarnjit, you personify UWM as a caring campus!
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As a part of the work of the College of General Studies Transformation Team (CGSTT), UWM will hold listening sessions over the next two weeks that will explore the future of the organizational structure of CGS — one of the team's specific goals.The listening sessions will be in person on the Washington County, Milwaukee, and Waukesha campuses, with opportunities to participate via Teams.
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December 7: Noon – 1p.m., Washington County campus, Room 310, or via Teams
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December 8: 2:30 – 3:30 p.m., Milwaukee campus, Bolton Hall, Room 150, or via Teams
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December 13: Noon – 1 p.m., Waukesha campus, Room C101 (Commons), or via Teams
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The sessions give the UWM community the opportunity to share thoughts and insights with the co-leads and team members associated with this goal. While the focus will be on the future structure of CGS, co-chairs Kathy Dolan and Scott Gronert will be available to answer other questions about the CGSTT’s work.
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The Fall 2023 End-of-Semester Reminders for Instructors message is available online.
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Following the December 15 edition, the Provost’s Updates will be on hiatus for the UWinteriM, returning on Friday, January 19. See the Spring 2024 Update schedule. Any items you have for the period extending from mid-December through mid-January that you’d like included in the December 15 update should be submitted by Friday, December 8.
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I am pleased to announce that, after an internal search, Professor Mark Srite (Lubar College of Business) has accepted the position of Interim Special Assistant for Faculty Affairs. He will be joining Academic Affairs in the coming weeks for onboarding, and beginning in January, he will be the main point of contact for faculty affairs until a permanent appointment is made following a national search.
Mark earned his PhD in Management Information Systems from Florida State University and joined UWM in 2000. He has been the Lubar College of Business Director of Accreditation since 2010 and served as Interim Associate Dean for Academic Affairs from 2020-2023. His research focuses on areas of technology acceptance across national cultures and issues in enterprise systems adoption.
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I am pleased to announce that Associate Professor Ilya Avdeev (Mechanical Engineering) has been named Director of the Lubar Entrepreneurship Center (LEC). Dr. Avdeev has been instrumental in the development of the LEC—including the National Science Foundation I-Corps (Innovation Corps) program, co-founding the Startup Challenge, and helping lead efforts to bring design-thinking and entrepreneurial-thinking to UWM and Milwaukee—through workshops, pop up classes, and partnerships with instructors who work as LEC Teaching Fellows to embed content in their courses. Brian Thompson, Chief Innovation & Partnerships Officer, expressed his gratitude to the search committee for their efforts, as well as the many supporters of the Lubar Entrepreneurship Center who have helped make the LEC a focal point for innovation, entrepreneurship, and creativity that spans the UWM community. Please join us in congratulating Dr. Avdeev on his new role.
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Advancing 2030 Plan Priorities |
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UWM staff will be on hand to help students enroll in Spring 2024 classes on Tuesday, December 5 from 11 a.m. – 2 p.m. in the Union Concourse as part of Class It Up! Students can get assistance with holds that may prevent them from enrolling, as well as help registering via Stellic, the new registration system.
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The UWM Libraries are continuing the eCAT (e-Course Assigned Text) pilot program in the Spring 2024 semester and are soliciting textbook information from instructors. See several ways to ascertain if the Libraries are able to acquire a textbook in an e-format for students to access free of charge.
- The Accessibility Resource Center will hold an Open House! UWM students and employees are invited to stop by on Thursday, January 18, from 11 a.m. – 1 p.m. in Mitchell Hall 115 and take a look at all the services ARC provides for equal access to both online and in-person classes. Light refreshments will be provided.
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Announcing Dissertation Basecamp, a Canvas-based resource that all dissertators will be enrolled in automatically. The site provides information and support for dissertation writing from start to finish. This site also hosts a three-day writing retreat (replacing the old Bootcamp) and ongoing co-writing groups to support student connectivity and productivity. Developed with student input over the past 12 months, this site is an active virtual community to reduce isolation for dissertators.
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A Three-Day Dissertation Writing Retreat will be held January 9 – 11 via Zoom. The retreat will engage dissertators from across campus in co-writing, with break-out sessions for support. Formerly known as Dissertation Bootcamp, these retreats are a great investment of time and effort toward connection and degree completion. Registration.
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UWM Libraries have entered into a transformative agreement with the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) that will allow UWM authors to publish unlimited open access (OA) articles in the RSC’s high-impact portfolio of journals, including RSC hybrid journals, Gold OA journals, and RSC Advances. UWM authors, who have published 73 articles in RSC journals since 2018, will pay no processing charges and will retain copyright, among other of the agreement’s advantages, beginning January 1. Information on the UWM Libraries’ other read and publish agreements.
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2024 Morris Fromkin Memorial Grant and Lecture: The UWM Libraries invite proposals for the 2024 grant that encourages and assists UWM scholars in all fields of study to conduct research on individuals, groups, movements, and ideas that have influenced the quest for social justice and human rights in the United States. The deadline to submit applications is January 12. More information.
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Records 101: An Introduction to Public Records, Records Management, and Open Meetings will be held on Tuesday, December 5 at 10 a.m. via Teams. Public Records Custodian Colleen Ference-Burke, University Legal Counsel Jennifer Herzog, and Records Officer Derek Webb will present the basics of fulfilling legal and policy requirements for open government as they apply to records and meetings. Event link.
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A Teams Calls: Shared Phone Numbers course will be held on Thursday, December 7, from 10-11 a.m. Learn to manage a phone for another person or manage a departmental or shared phone. All TechTraining courses are free and held through Teams Live Events, no registration necessary. More information and join here.
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With appreciation,
Andrew P. Daire, PhD
Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs
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