November 2019

The PTK Symposium continues to provide faculty members with support

This year’s Professional Track Faculty Symposium, held on Nov. 1 in the Stamp Student Union, was the second such event to celebrate success on the professional track.

Attendees enjoyed an opening plenary session featuring Taryn Devereux, Dylan Selterman and Ebony Shockley sharing their success stories while at UMD, applauded their colleagues in an award ceremony, attended smaller breakout sessions, and socialized at a networking reception.

The breakout sessions offered support and information to professional track faculty members. Dr. John Bertot, Associate Provost for Faculty Affairs and Professor in the iSchool, noted that, “we had sessions that were specifically geared towards assisting them through the promotion process, helping them understand the policies and procedures we have on campus, as well as mentoring and various other things.”

Breakout sessions in the first group included a discussion of rank-based bias (TERP Allies), advice on building a teaching portfolio, an extended conversation with the plenary speakers, and “New Faculty 201.”

During the second group of concurrent sessions, one addressed scholarship, another explained the promotion dossier, a third looked at the art of negotiation, and the fourth featured a discussion of mentoring.

According to Dr. Bertot, “The topics were well chosen and well placed to both build community and also enable further professional development for our professional track faculty members.”

A Principal Research Scientist in the Astronomy Department and one of the symposium’s organizers, Dr. Marc Pound, said the symposium is put on to “celebrate the accomplishments of the professional track faculty that often don’t get recognized and to provide opportunities for them to engage in professional development.”

Describing the partnership that created the event, Dr. Bertot pointed out that it is a symposium “by professional track faculty members and for professional track faculty members with the support of the Office of Faculty Affairs.”

This year, there were 147 attendees and 19 speakers from various UMD departments. Attendees were seen enjoying the sessions, taking pictures, networking and sharing their ideas.

Dr. Pound said the event was well attended, and the speakers were dynamic and engaging. He heard many compliments about the event throughout the day. He believes that at the symposium, attendees gained knowledge about our new policies, about how they are being implemented across the university, and about how they could be implemented in individual units. Participants also learned about where to turn for advice and resources. “The idea,” he said, is to give colleagues “enough knowledge that they can then go off on their own and expand” the discussion to include those unable to attend.

The role of professional track faculty members sometimes goes unnoticed and unappreciated. Dr. Bertot, however, “sees professional track faculty members as core to our campus and the idea [of the symposium] is to ensure that faculty know about and meet each other and interact with each other regardless of what grouping of faculty they might be in.”

Clinical Professor and Acting Chair of Hearing and Speech Sciences and one of the symposium’s organizers, Dr. Colleen Worthington, said that the planning committee for this symposium met every two weeks for seven months to make sure this event was planned just right.

Dr. Worthington said that, “symposiums are a big thing”: there is session planning, speaker recruitment, event logistics, financial planning and more that need to be figured out to make a symposium happen.

She said that she “absolutely” saw people enjoying themselves during this event and that this year was very successful. She stated, “what I was really happy to see was how many people who were there last year came again.”

Dr. Pound said that ultimately, “there’s lots of knowledge out there to be had and lots of connections to be made with people in other disciplines. This is a way for all of us to get together in one place.”

Article by Jaime Williams

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Spotlight on UMD Leadership

Georgina Dodge, VP Diversity & Inclusion

"Be Here Now"

Georgina Dodge may have taken an unconventional path to diversity work, but it’s not surprising where she eventually ended up. A first-generation college student born in South Korea and raised in a military family in countries like Japan, Turkey and the Philippines, Dodge, who arrived in June as the university’s first vice president for diversity and inclusion, said she “grew up often being an outsider.” “My overall life arc has led me this way,” Dodge said. “I like change.” Read more. Courtesy of Maryland Today.

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Activity Insight Launch

Timesaving Tips

The University of Maryland is launching Activity Insight by Digital Measures/Watermark as our faculty activities system this year, 2019-2020. This system enables individual faculty members and the University as a whole to promote and report accomplishments and activities.

Those of you who will be using the platform to submit your 2019 annual activity report can get started now. Head to the Faculty Affairs Activity Insight portal to log in. When you access the platform, you'll notice that some activities have already been loaded for you. In September, we shared information on the campus integrations in place that automatically load your information, including data from the legacy Lyterati system. Last month, we provided an overview of the publication import feature. This month, we share some useful features for streamlining your Activity Insight experience.

Duplicating an Activity

Sometimes you can save time adding activities by using the Duplicate feature. In some cases where there are two activities that are almost identical, you may find it easier to duplicate one and then slightly modify it. To duplicate an activity, view the summary screen for that activity type and check the box to the right of the activity to be duplicated. Clicking the Duplicate button in the upper right will open an exact copy of the selected item. You can update the information as needed for your new record, and click Save to complete the creation of that new record.

Pasteboard

The PasteBoard feature allows you to bring in text from another document, paste it into the PasteBoard and then click-and-hold to drag text from PasteBoard into a field in Activity Insight. It allows you to add activities from one of your existing documents, such as a CV, without having to switch back and forth between the document and Activity Insight.

PasteBoard is accessed from the PasteBoard button at the top right of the Activities screen. It will appear in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen and remains visible and usable as you navigate between activities. Any text left in PasteBoard will remain there for future sessions, even after logging out.

Rapid Reports

While you are managing your activities, you may want to check how an update looks on a report. The Rapid Reports button at the top right of the screen (by PasteBoard) gives you quick access to the reports you can run in Activity Insight.

Search

The Search All Activities input area is a quick way to locate activities on any screen based on free-text search of your activity details. To narrow your search, navigate to the summary screen for an activity type. The Search box now limits results to your activity details for this activity screen only.

Learn More About Activity Insight

The Activity Insight portal is not only your starting point for logging in to the platform; it is also a self-service resource with short how-to videos, extensive user guides, and contact information for the Activity Insight team. Platform support is available through email, by phone (301.405.7681) and drop-in office hours in 1120A Toll Physics Building (M 12-2/Tu 9-12/W 11-1/Th 9-12/F 9-12).

Awards | Recognition | Leadership Development

The Distinguished Scholar-Teacher Lecture Series has concluded with the final lecture featuring Sharon Fries-Britt's presentation on Black Academic Lives from the Margin to the Center: Mattering in the Academy. See below for photos of the lectures. Left to right: Daniel Lathrop; George Hurtt; and Sharon Fries-Britt. Derek Richardson not pictured.

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Policy & Procedure

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Faculty Development

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Tips & Resources

Events

Dec. 2	UMEEA Event: Greater College Park Initiative featuring Ken Ulman
Dec. 6	Webinar: Demonstrating & Evaluating Research Impact
Dec. 9	Last Day of Classes
Dec. 16-18	Commencement Ceremonies

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