January 2020

Faculty Affairs Welcomes New Associate Director for Faculty Initiatives, Heidi Bulich

The Office of Faculty Affairs is delighted to welcome Heidi Bulich as the new Associate Director for Faculty Initiatives. Heidi was formerly an Associate Clinical Professor in the School of Architecture, Planning & Preservation, where she also served as the Director of the minors in Real Estate Development and Construction Management. She will oversee matters related to Professional Track (PTK) faculty members, including professional development opportunities; awards; and policies and procedures related to PTK engagement and employment, including appointment, evaluation, and promotion.

Heidi has worked at two other BIG 10 institutions--the University of Michigan and Michigan State University-- and one ACC institution, North Carolina State University. During this time, she taught numerous undergraduate and graduate courses, and won a number of teaching awards, including the “Outstanding Professor,” an honor bestowed on her by the Senior Class at MSU in 2010. Prior to that she practiced real estate, banking, and corporate law. Heidi developed a deep love for nature growing up on a farm in upstate New York, and has been interested in the intersection of environmental concerns and real estate law throughout her career. She received her bachelor’s and law degrees from Georgetown University. She is an avid gardener and enjoys traveling, going to the theater, walking her dog, and spending time with family and friends. She is actively involved with the Urban Land Institute, Habitat for Humanity, and the American Society of Adaptation Professionals. Heidi is excited about this opportunity to support the important work of PTK faculty members at UMD.

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Awards | Recognition | Leadership Development

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Spotlight on UMD Leadership

The new TLTC Executive Director, Kathy Takayama, creates positive change

On June 6, 2019, Dr. Kathy Takayama was announced the Executive Director of the University of Maryland’s Teaching and Learning Transformation Center (TLTC) and on September 23, 2019, she started in her role. Since her appointment, she has been spearheading existing initiatives and programs while simultaneously collaborating with her team to create new ones.

Takayama stated that the TLTC is about to launch a new initiative called “Learning and Performing Services.” With this service, the center will be “working directly with undergraduate students, to help them develop learning skills, to help become more reflective and strategic in their time management, their organization [and] the ways in which they are engaging with their courses and subjects.” She wants students to know that this will be an opportunity for them to “really enhance [their] ongoing career skills that are going to help [them] no matter what [they] end up doing.”

Additionally, the TLTC “just launched a faculty liaison network and a graduate liaison network.” Takayama explained that this institution-wide network is one where they invite “colleges and schools to nominate representative faculty and graduate students who will serve as liaisons directly between the center and their units. Their roles will be to provide [the TLTC] with input on what are their needs for their particular colleges and or departments and for them to help [the TLTC] to disseminate information.” Takayama stated, “we want them to feel like they have concrete input into the design of our programs and to help us think about additional campus collaborations.”

Lastly, Takayama said that the TLTC has been partnering with faculty and administrators institution-wide to apply for a national inclusive excellence grant that would be awarded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The grant is focused on transforming the institution in a manner that will hold everyone accountable for helping to create an inclusive climate for STEM success.

According to Takayama, “a lot of the programs coming up will be a part of the Learning and Performing Services, but then we will have more concrete programs that will address certain specific needs for departments and courses . . . Some programs are not new, but they are exciting revisions of existing programs.”

The TLTC is excited about their Academic Peer Mentoring Program (AMP), which is “an undergraduate training program, where undergraduate students are trained to work with faculty in helping to create more engaging experiences for students in that course,” said Takayama. “What we are moving toward is more of a students-as-partners model, where the students are really in partnership with faculty in developing and revising courses. They are not teaching assistants or workers, but they are developing agency and ownership.”

She believes this is important for students who feel as though they don’t belong to the institution or that they haven’t found a community. Takayama stated that “research has shown when [students] engage in a program that focuses on students as partners, then they really develop agency, they feel like they are apart of a community, they feel like they belong and they really are empowered, so that model is really important to us.”

The TLTC currently has ongoing workshops for faculty and graduate students, cohort group meetings, fellows programs, solutions that help instructors learn how to teach online, faculty learning communities that explore how colleagues can learn from each other as they engage in projects, and more.

Takayama stated that her vision for the TLTC is “to continue developing and expanding our collaborations” across the campus and to help the institution “think more concretely and in an evidence-based way” about how to evaluate effective and inclusive teaching.

Far from new to academic centers for teaching and learning, Dr. Takayama has worked at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute as a Senior Science Education Fellow, Northeastern University as the Director of the Center for Advanced Teaching and Learning through Research, Columbia University as the Associate Provost and Founding Executive Director for the Center for Teaching and Learning, and Brown University in a joint appointment with the Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning and the Department of Molecular Biology.

Takayama earned her Bachelor of Science in Biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and her PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Rutgers University Medical School. 

Article by Jaime Williams

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Activity Insight Launch

The University of Maryland is launching Activity Insight by Digital Measures/Watermark as our faculty activities system. This system enables individual faculty members and the University as a whole to promote and report accomplishments and activities. We launched this new tool over the 2019 calendar year with tenured/tenure-track faculty members, with the goal of using the platform for annual reporting in early 2020. The next phase, during 2020, will expand the use of the platform to all faculty members.

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. In October, we provided an overview of the publication import feature. In November, we shared some useful features for streamlining your Activity Insight experience. Last month, we covered how you will submit your 2019 annual activity report. This month, we will review the timing of updates from the integrated campus systems and share some timesaving data entry tips.

Updates from Integrated Campus Systems

A number of important data imports are being made from the integrated campus systems to Activity Insight this month: 

• Fall 2019 course information will be imported from SIS into the Scheduled Teaching screen by January 21, 2020
• Fall 2019 course evaluation information from CourseEvalUM will be imported into the Course Evaluation screen by January 23, 2020
• 2019 calendar year activity from Kuali Research will be imported into the ORA-Managed Awards and ORA-Managed Proposals screens by Jan 28, 2020
• Information on faculty participation in thesis/dissertation committees for Fall 2019 graduates will be imported once the degrees have posted.

Time Saving Tips

Here are a few key reminders as you tackle documenting your activity in 2019:

1. Remember to save before leaving an activity data screen.
2. Use the Import Publications feature to pull in your recent publications.
3. Rapid Reports (button at the top right of the screen) lets you check how an update looks on a report.
4. The Duplicate feature is useful when there are nearly identical activities.
5. PasteBoard (button at the top right, next to Rapid Reports) 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.

Refer to the Faculty User Guide or the short how-to videos on the Activity Insight portal to learn more.

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). Training sessions are scheduled for Feb 7 (12-1:30), Feb 21 (12-1:30), Mar 3 (12-1) and Mar 9 (12-1). See the portal for more information.

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University System of Maryland Grants

All proposals must be submitted by 11:59 p.m. ET on Friday, February 28, 2020.

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Research Development

WISCIENCE/CIMER Facilitating Entering Research Workshop

June 4-5, 2020 
University of Wisconsin - Madison

The Entering Research program by the Center for the Improvement of Mentored Experiences in Research (CIMER) is recommended in the new National Academies report The Science of Effective Mentorship in STEMM as one form of mentorship education that can help improve mentoring relationships. We hope you’ll join us at an upcoming workshop to learn more about how to use Entering Research to enhance your research training program. The workshop fills up quickly so be sure to reserve your spot today!

June 4-5, 2020 - Deadline to reserve your spot: April 3, 2020

Facilitating Entering Research is a two-day “train-the-trainer” workshop for undergraduate and graduate research training program directors, faculty, post-doctoral fellows, instructors, staff members, and administrators in STEMM. Workshop participants learn to facilitate Entering Research activities, develop a custom curriculum for their research trainees, and create a plan to implement the custom curriculum at their institution or organization. This workshop is offered by the Center for the Improvement of Mentored Experiences in Research (CIMER) and the Wisconsin Institute for Science Education and Community Engagement (WISCIENCE).

Registration is limited to 32 participants. Workshops often fill quickly, so reserve your spot early. Registration is $995 and includes workshop materials, a copy of the Entering Research book plus breakfast, lunch, and an afternoon snack. Participants are responsible for funding their own travel and lodging.

For more information and to register, visit: https://sites.google.com/wisc.edu/facilitatingenteringresearch/home

If you have questions, please contact Julia Vander Meer, CIMER Program Manager, at julia.vandermeer@wisc.edu.

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Faculty Development

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Tips & Resources

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Events

Jan. 27	First Day of Spring Semester
Feb. 19	Academic Leadership Forum
Feb. 20	Faculty Forum: Working with Graduate Students
Feb. 26	Orientation Follow-up: Diversity & OCRSM
Feb. 26	APT Workshop: Pre-3rd Year Review
Feb. 27	Chair Workshop: Dealing with Difficult People
Feb. 28	APT Workshop: Post-3rd Year Review
Mar. 2	APT Workshop: APT Workshop: Associate to Full
Mar. 4	APT Workshop: Academic Administrators
Mar. 11	Faculty Forum: Freedom of Information Act
Mar. 25	Chair Workshop: Lunch with Georgina Dodge, Chief Diversity Officer
Mar. 26	Orientation Follow-up: Community Engagement
Mar. 31	Academic Leadership Forum
Apr. 22	Chair Workshop: Sexual Misconduct & Bullying
Apr. 23	Faculty Forum: Academic Freedom & Free Speech
Apr. 28	Academic Leadership Forum

Register for programs and events: https://go.umd.edu/OFAevents

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