All-Faculty Meeting Oct. 23: State of the College

The Emory College Senate will host a meeting for all College faculty members from 4 p.m.-5:30 p.m., Wednesday, Oct. 23, White Hall 208.

Dean Michael A. Elliott will give a “State of the College” address and an update on the College’s strategic plan, Leading the Liberal Arts & Sciences, which was endorsed by the Senate in December 2017. All faculty are encouraged to attend. A reception will follow the meeting.

First-Year Seminars Needed for Spring Semester

As departments finalize course schedules for the spring semester, the College is projecting a shortage of first-year seminars. Faculty who are interested in teaching first-year seminars should contact their department chair and Jason Ciejka (jciejka@emory.edu) in the Office for Undergraduate Education to discuss the possibility of adding seminars to the schedule. The first-year seminar is often one of the most memorable courses our students take, and we want to ensure that all our new students have access to this important experience.

Dean's Pop-up Event Oct. 16

Oxford College and Emory College of Arts & Sciences, in partnership with the Office of the Provost, will host the third in a series of Deans’ Pop-Up Events, “Cross-School Collaborations to Enhance the Emory Undergraduate Experience” from 3 p.m.-5p.m., Wednesday, Oct. 16 in Phi Gamma Hall at Oxford College. Register here.

This conversation will focus on successful strategies for expanding inter-school faculty collaboration to prepare students to convert their academic pursuits into meaningful opportunities in a rapidly changing world. Followed by opening remarks from Provost Dwight McBride, Dean Doug Hicks of Oxford College and Dean Michael Elliott of Emory College of Arts and Sciences will join Professors Tasha Dobbin-Bennett (Oxford College) and Peter Höyng (Emory College) in a discussion of initiatives to enhance the four-year Emory undergraduate experience via cross-school collaborations, including the Humanities Pathways Project, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Round-trip shuttle transportation from Emory’s Atlanta campus will be provided. Shuttles will depart at 2 p.m. from outside White Hall on Dowman Drive. They will return to that same location at 6:30 p.m. Free parking is also available on the Oxford campus. For questions about the Deans’ Pop-Up event, contact Adrienne Vinson Waddey at amvinso@emory.edu.

Healthy Working Environments for Graduate Students: A Program for Faculty

C.K. “Tina” Gunsalus, director of the National Center for Professional and Research Ethics and a prominent expert in the development of better ethics and leadership practices in academic settings, will discuss strategies to build a healthy work environment for graduate students from noon-1:30 p.m., Monday, Oct. 21, in Goizueta Business School W525. Lunch will be provided.

Positive working relationships among graduate faculty and students are essential to creating and sustaining a vibrant and productive climate in research institutions. An important aim of this session is to help faculty know how to intervene and address problematic situations they may observe, such as bullying, belittling, neglect, implicit bias and other issues.

This program, which is for faculty only, should be of particular interest to department chairs and directors of graduate studies/program directors of LGS graduate programs, but all faculty are welcome to attend.

This program is presented by the Center for Faculty Development and Excellence, the Laney Graduate School, and Campus Life. For more information, visit the CFDE website. RSVP at this link.

Tenure and Promotion: Updates to Guidelines

The Tenure and Promotion Principles and Procedures document has been updated and is available on the Office of Faculty website. Changes include:

• The notification deadline for candidates planning to be reviewed for promotion to full professor has been extended to January 15, 2020. Cases will still go before the T&P Committee and TPAC in Fall 2020, as was the case under the earlier October deadline.
• Guidelines for the research statement and the student review letters have been updated to include additional instructions.

Faculty Development Opportunities

New Faculty Orientation and Luncheon Session

The next orientation and lunch session for new faculty will take place from 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m., Tuesday, Oct, 22 in White Hall 200. Eric Weeks, director of the Center for Faculty Development and Excellence, and Paula Gomes, director of the Emory Faculty Staff Assistance Program, will discuss the various support services available to faculty at Emory.

Additional monthly luncheons will be held for new faculty throughout the fall and spring semesters and will feature speakers from key areas of the University and College. The full schedule for all faculty meetings can be found on the Office of Faculty website.

Orientation Sessions for New and Returning Department Chairs

The Emory College administration hosts several orientation sessions for new department chairs and program directors to assist them in their development as academic administrators. The full schedule can be found on the Office of Faculty website. Three sessions will be held in October:

Emory College Business Operations Overview

Strategic Allocation of Resources: Research and Travel

Speakers: Carla Freeman, Carol King
10:30 a.m.-11 a.m., Friday, Oct. 11
Atwood Chemistry 360

Department Culture, Climate, and Fostering Inclusivity

Speakers: Carla Freeman, Maurice Middleton, Carol Henderson
8:30-9:30 a.m., Friday, Oct. 25
White Hall 200

Faculty Funding Opportunities

The Chronos Faculty Fellowship

The Chronos Faculty Fellowship is a new opportunity for a tenured faculty member in the Humanities or Social Sciences that will support one academic year of leave (salary and $10,000 in research/travel funds). It aims to support ambitious scholarship in the post-tenure period, when time for immersive research and writing can be difficult to secure.

The Chronos Faculty Fellowship is funded through a generous grant by the Abraham J. & Phyllis Katz Foundation, and a single fellowship will be offered in each of the next five academic years.

The successful fellowship recipient will advance a bold research question and demonstrate the capacity to disseminate the results of that research through clear and compelling writing. In concert with this gift, the College will fund a Visiting Assistant Professorship (or similar instructional opportunity) in the successful Chronos Fellowship recipient’s field.

Fellowship applications should include:

• A research/writing proposal no longer than three single-spaced pages;
• A brief letter of endorsement from the department chair; and
• Courses to be released during the academic year of leave.

Proposals should be submitted to Dean_of_Faculty@emory.edu no later than Friday, Nov. 1. Proposals will be judged on the creativity of the research question; the need for an extended research period; and the demonstration of a record of clear and effective writing.

Scholarly Writing and Publishing Fund

The Center for Faculty Development and Excellence offers the Scholarly Writing and Publishing (SWAP) fund, a grant program designed to help faculty seeking professional editorial support for projects in development across a range of serious scholarly works, such as article manuscripts, grant writing, and digital scholarship, as well as book manuscripts.

A limited number of grants from this fund for up to $3,000 are available. These grants are intended to support Emory faculty members facing the challenges of scholarly writing at any stage of their careers and to provide funds for hiring editorial support or a writing coach. For more information, visit the CFDE website.

Rose Library Faculty Teaching Fellowship

The Emory University Libraries & Information Technology and the Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library announce a new faculty development opportunity related to teaching excellence at Emory University. The Rose Library Faculty Teaching Fellowship provides instructional and financial support to faculty who wish to develop a new course or redesign an existing course that makes significant and regular use of the collections and resources within the Rose Library.

The deadline for applications is Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2019. The selection committee will review applications and notify applicants by Friday, Nov. 8. For more information, visit the Rose Library website.

Hightower Speaker Funds Available

Each year Emory College receive funds from the Hightower endowment, which memorializes the late Robert E. Hightower Sr. This endowment provides funds to bring outstanding visiting lecturers to Emory. The College has typically committed funds of $75,000-$100,000 annually. These include small allocations for partial funding of a single speaker to large amounts to support conferences with several speakers.

Applications for Spring and Summer events are currently being accepted. The deadline to submit applications is Friday, Nov.15. Applications should be submitted electronically to Dean_of_Faculty@emory.edu. More information about the application process and the application can be found on the Office of Faculty website.

Office for Undergraduate Education: Updates & Deadlines

Partial Withdrawal Deadline

The partial withdrawal deadline for the fall semester is Friday, Oct. 18. Students must turn in their completed withdrawal forms to OUE no later than 4 p.m. on Oct. 18. Students are required to ask their instructor to sign their withdrawal form. Please note: Your signature doesn’t indicate your approval of the decision by the student, only that they have had a conversation with you about the decision.

Student Absences from Class

The OUE does not provide official absence excuses for missed classes, quizzes, or assignments. The OUE may provide an official absence excuse for a missed midterm or final exam, as noted in the Emory College Catalog. The OUE defers to the judgment of course instructors to make decisions regarding missed classes, quizzes, or assignments. Emory Student Health Services does not provide absence excuses and students are not required to disclose confidential medical/personal records to their instructors. In the case of an extended absence, the OUE will work with faculty and students to determine next steps.

Class Rosters

Since the Office of the Registrar no longer provides a paper roster as a means of verifying student enrollment, faculty are encouraged to verify their class roster with the information that can be found in OPUS. If you become aware of any discrepancies between the OPUS record and actual class attendance, these can be reported to oue.advising@emory.edu. Please give OUE Advising the course and section number affected, along with the student name and ID number.

Resources A to Z

The Resources A to Z feature on the new OUE website was created to help students, faculty, and staff find answers to frequently asked questions and information on important topics. The feature also includes all of the forms a student might need in the College. In addition, the OUE site includes a Faculty Resources page featuring policies, forms, and other information relevant to faculty for student needs.

Submit a "Side-Car" Course Proposal

The Institute for the Liberal Arts invites applications from Emory College faculty members interested in developing a side-car course as part of a team that includes a faculty member in another department or discipline and two undergraduate IDEAS fellows. A side-car course brings together two courses (and instructors) that overlap, either through methodologies or topics, to create a short, one-hour, interdisciplinary course that runs simultaneously with its two sponsoring courses.

An information session for interested faculty will be held Friday, Oct. 18 at 11:30 a.m. in S420 Callaway Center. Applications are due Monday, Oct. 21. Contact Kim Loudermilk, klouder@emory.edu for more information about the program and application process.

Emory Pre-College Course Proposals for Summer 2020

The Emory Pre-College Program brings bright, ambitious, rising high school juniors and seniors to Emory in the summer to give them a short experience of college life. Current Emory faculty, emeritus faculty members, and advanced graduate students with strong teaching records are eligible to propose courses for the Pre-College Program.

eIRB Update Project: Important Dates and Submission Restrictions

The Institutional Review Board (IRB) is in the process of upgrading its current system. In order to migrate study data from the current eIRB system to the upgraded one, a strategic submission slowdown is currently planned for Jan. 7- 31, 2020. These dates are subject to change depending on technical issues discovered along the way.

Due to the possibility that the slowdown period may shift, the IRB is requiring that all studies scheduled to expire between Jan.1, 2020 and Feb. 21, 2020 submit a continuing review in November 2019 to avoid a lapse in approval. Please review your portfolio of active studies to determine whether you may need to submit continuing review early. Contact the IRB if you have any questions.

Please note that the IRB will not process or accept the submission of any continuing reviews during the slowdown period and will only review certain types of new studies and amendments. More information on how the slowdown may affect submissions can be found on the IRB website.

Qualtrics Online Survey Platform Now Available

A College-wide license for the Qualtrics Online Survey Platform has been obtained and is generally available to all Emory College faculty and staff (in exceptional cases students may also be granted access). The Qualtrics Online Survey Platform enables online data collection and analysis in support of program or course evaluation, student or faculty feedback, employee satisfaction, and social research in general.

Qualtrics use is generally acceptable for scholarly purposes by Emory College researchers, but consult with IRB regarding the specifics of your research program or the College’s Director of Institutional Research, Lane DeNicola, lane.denicola@emory.edu.

Emory College faculty/staff are able to auto-enroll to use Qualtrics. If you have IT related issue with the tool, contact Emory College IT at echelp@emory.edu. For more detailed instruction, please go to http://help.emory.edu with your Emory credentials, search for "Emory College Qualtrics" or "KB05412."

Welcome the New Class Tech Team

Emory College Business Operations and the IT department are pleased to announce the formation of the Classroom Technology Services (CTS) Team. The College welcomes Aaron Cooper, Bruce Dille, Steve Witte and Max Lanier. Aaron, Bruce and Steve will be familiar faces, as they have been supporting Emory College for years as part of LITS ClassTech. Max is joining the College from the School of Medicine.

Writing for the Web - New Sessions Available

College web editors and other staff who work on department websites are strongly encouraged to attend a “Writing for the Web” workshop in advance of the new department web templates rolling out this fall.

In this session, web editors will review the fundamentals and best practices of writing for the web and practice techniques that convert dense web pages into scannable pages to better serve your audiences.

The next sessions will be held Wednesday, Oct. 30 and Wednesday, Nov. 6 from 10:30 a.m. – Noon in Woodruff Library Room 314 for both sessions. RSVP on the Emory College Communications website.

For questions about the new template process, contact Kizzy Williams, kizzy.williams@emory.edu.

Emory College Social Media

Social Media guidelines

Emory College’s guidelines for social media usage are designed to provide faculty, staff, and students with practical advice on best practices that adhere to the Open Expression policy and our commitment to academic freedom, as well as Standards of Conduct, Statement of Confidentiality, and Equal Opportunity and Discriminatory Harassment policies. Learn more about Emory College’s Guidelines and Best Practices.

Share your events

Emory College is active on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat (mobile only, @emorycollege). Follow us for updates and news around campus. Need help promoting an event? Send your event flyers (PDF’s) and photos for promotion to College Communications Manager April Hunt at april.hunt@emory.edu at least 10 days in advance of your event.