Faculty Affairs Newsletter
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Start the new year "write"
It's not too late to participate in the Faculty Writing Initiative (FWI). The Friday morning session has room for five faculty writers and the Friday afternoon session has room for ten. Join your colleagues with structured writing time to make progress on your writing projects. If you have any questions, please email Dr. Byrd (antoniobyrd@umkc.edu) or Dr. Greer, (greerj@umkc.edu).
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Interested in increasing your public engagement and the impact of your research? Here’s how.
The Center for Advancing Faculty Excellence is hosting a three-part workshop that will guide participants through the process of producing and submitting an academic blog post relating to their research. This is a great way to promote new publications, raise your profile as a researcher, and increase the visibility of your department. The workshop is open to any faculty member and begins February 25 at 3:00 pm. Please contact Dr. Rebecca Best, facilitator, with questions: bestrh@umkc.edu.
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New: Community-Engaged Learning Attribute
Beginning with this semester, Pathway has a new attribute: “Community-Engaged Learning (CEL).” The CEL attribute will mean that students searching course listings in Pathway will be able to search for courses that include a Community-Engaged Learning component and will also mean that students will be made aware of a Community-Engaged Learning component in any course they are considering for enrollment. Additionally, these courses will be identified on students’ transcripts.
To propose that an existing course currently has community-engaged learning components for the CEL attribute, instructors submit an annotated version of the course syllabus that highlights where they describe CEL to students and where CEL appears in at least one of the course outcomes. This may be as simple as highlighting portions of the syllabus. The CEL subcommittee will review the annotated syllabus and either approve the CEL attribute or work with you to address changes needed to meet the CEL attribute requirements.
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Upcoming Award Opportunities for UMKC Faculty
Faculty are invited to apply for the following awards. For a complete list of award opportunities and accompanying links, visit the CAFE website awards’ calendar.
March
Curators’ Distinguished Professorships and Curators’ Distinguished Teaching Professorships
A Curators’ Distinguished Professorship is the highest and most prestigious academic rank awarded by the Board of Curators of the University of Missouri. It is awarded to a select few “outstanding scholars with established reputations.” Each Curators’ Distinguished Professor becomes a “resource of the entire University and should be expected to contribute to the entire University through such activities as giving lectures on other campuses and engaging in teaching and research across divisional lines.” April
Early Career Faculty Award
The Early Career Faculty Award program is funded by the Emeritus College endowment. Awards of $1000 are granted to faculty early in their careers, typically but not exclusively tenure-track assistant professors.
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Sign Up for a Faculty Learning Community (FLC) this spring
What is an FLC?
An FLC is a peer-led group of faculty members who engage in an active, collaborative program, structured to provide encouragement, support and reflection. FLC members work together to produce outcomes or products about teaching and learning. Through FLCs, faculty members engage in scholarly teaching and student-centered learning, collaborating within a collegial framework that offers peer review and support. For more information on Faculty Learning Communities, please visit our CAFE website on FLCs.
We are offering four possible FLCs this spring. Based upon interest expressed in this application and facilitator availability, several of them may be conducted this semester. We will not be able to host all of the FLCs on this list. FLCs must have a minimum of 7 participants and a maximum of 10 to be considered viable. Not all applications may be accepted if interest is high in a particular FLC.
- Shared Governance: Past, Present, Future
- UWRB Faculty Learning Community on Threshold Concepts
- Incorporating Collaborative Learning Techniques in the Classroom
- Universal Design for Learning
For descriptions of each FLC and to fill out an application for one or more of these opportunites, click the link below!
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Mid-Career Faculty Focus Groups
Every professor moves through career stages across years of service, but few take time to consider how each phase (early, middle, late) presents different pressure points, advantages as well as disadvantages, and opportunities for advancement.
The Center for the Advancement of Faculty Excellence (CAFE) is hosting several 90-minute Zoom conversations open to mid-career faculty in particular. In a collaborative focus group setting facilitated by a CAFE fellow, participants will share insights about their own career stage perceptions and offer ideas about exactly what types of faculty support and development resources would prove most meaningful to their work at UMKC. Ultimately, focus group participants' responses will contribute to the development of resources and supports which fulfill the CAFE mission of supporting faculty at all career stages.
- February 15 - 9:00am-10:30am
- February 17 - 2:00pm-3:30pm
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Roos Rock!
Please join us in celebrating the accomplishments of our talented faculty
Please visit our Faculty Awards page on the CAFE website for complete details.
Congratulations to…
The "Class of COVID-19": A Documentary Film is a short film hoping to make a lasting impact. Donna Davis, a professor in the School of Education, teamed up with Jon Brick, an independent film director, March 2020 to begin the project. The film is now ready to screen.
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Yotam Haber, associate professor of music composition, and Owen Belcher, assistant professor of music theory, with UMKC Conservatory, launched a music program at Lansing Correctional Facility.
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Faculty, do you have more good news to share? Your FAN Team wants to know! Email news of your recent (since August 2021) awards, grants, major publications, and promotions to: meadmo@umkc.edu.
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A column where we talk about disability and share our thoughts on what we need access to as professors, researchers and colleagues. If you have an idea or topic that you would like us to talk about, please send and email to edwardsmatt@umkc.edu.
Abelism and Universal Design
Lindy Smith, Head of LaBudde Special Collections
Many aspects of our identities are fixed, but some change over time. Disability can be both. Some people are born with disabilities and some develop them over time. Some people have disabilities for their entire lives and for some people they are temporary. Regardless of how you come to disability, it’s likely that you will experience it in some way at some time in your life.
Some people are hearing, some people are Deaf. Some people use their feet and legs to navigate the world, some people use wheelchairs, prosthetics, and other mobility aids. Some people are neurotypical, some are neurodivergent. Neither is objectively better or worse, they’re just different. But the people in the first groups can generally navigate spaces more easily as they’re considered “normal” and spaces are built to accommodate them This is how marginalization works: a group with power decides where to draw lines of acceptability and those outside those lines have to work harder to fit in. Like other marginalized identities, disability has a disproportionate impact on some people because of intersectionality.
We use language, policies, and built environments to distance ourselves and turn people with disabilities in the other, something we hope we will never become. Ableism is the assumption that what we have collectively decided to consider “normal” is desirable and privileged and anything outside of that narrow definition is wrong, something to be mocked or, at best, corrected. But what if we shifted that perspective?
[continued]
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Teaching when some students need to attend remotely
You are teaching in an ILE Classroom and you un-expectedtly need to take your class session online for quarantined student or for special guest presenters and you’re a little intimidated by this task. It’s okay, you may be better prepared than you expected.
When you are in this situation not all of the ILE rooms are created equal and you will have much more success in some classrooms and a lot of frustration in others. UMKC does have a few, specially designed spaces for Hyflex teaching. These rooms have extra video monitors, multiple cameras, student microphones, and other technology to help facilitate this style of class. Again, these rooms are few in numbers, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t have a successful remote learning class in a “normal” classroom.
First things first, the standard ILE classroom will NOT have multiple monitors, student microphones, or extra cameras and we do not have the inventory to install these devices everywhere. However, over half of the ILE rooms are pretty capable as they are and here are few rules of thumb to help guide your expectations when you start “going remote”.
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Health Forward Foundation Announces a New Focus
Health Forward Foundation announces new purpose plan. They are shifting their focus to solutions and policies that address racism built into systems and that build wealth to improve our region’s long-term health and wellness. Learn more: https://lnkd.in/gvyTiU8n
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Cool Data Viz: Gov | DNA
Gov | DNA is an award-winning interactive online web tool that explores the factors that contribute to good (and bad) government in countries all around the world. See what you discover and share on Twitter.
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Have something to share in the Faculty Affairs Newsletter? Email Molly Mead with your brief text and an (optional) photo.
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University of Missouri-Kansas City | Kansas City, MO 64110 | (816) 235-1107
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