UF'S Provost Office offers faculty development series

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The University of Florida’s Provost Office announces its fall “Faculty Development Conversations” series.

The first event in the series, “A Conversation About University Budgets,” will be held from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. Monday in Room 282 of the Reitz Student Union. This open forum will explore the structural and functional aspects of UF’s financial system. Faculty and others interested in how the university budget system works, including its sources and uses of cash and cash equivalents, are invited to join panelists Ed Poppell, vice president for finance and administration; Kim Tanzer, Faculty Senate chairwoman; and Janie Fouke, provost and senior vice president for academic affairs.

Would you like to have your students come to class prepared to engage in meaningful dialogue and critical thinking? Interested in using more student teams in your courses? In your lectures? In course projects? Then save this date: Oct. 12, from 3 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. in Emerson Alumni Hall Room 209 for the second event in the “Faculty Development Conversations” series. Walter Wager, professor of instructional systems and coordinator of instructional development services at Florida State University, will join UF faculty for this informal discussion on “Collaborative Learning.” Wager is co-author with the late Robert Gagne, of the text “Principles of Instructional Design,” now in its fifth edition, and has authored two other books on instructional design.

The third event in this fall’s “Faculty Development Conversations” series focuses on diversity. JoAnn Moody, director of the Northeast Consortium for Faculty Diversity and author of “Faculty Diversity: Problems and Solutions,” will join UF President Bernie Machen, Provost Janie Fouke and other university administrators, faculty and student leaders for a two-day, multi-event “Conversation about Faculty Diversity, Recruitment and Retention.”

This “conversation” begins Nov. 9 with a series of small group workshops lead by
Moody. Using written vignettes as starting points for discussion, participants will explore how to identify and overcome cognitive errors, which contaminate evaluation decisions during faculty searches, tenure reviews and promotion processes. Moody’s visit continues on Nov. 10 with a roundtable event focused on retention. With discussions motivated by live performances by the College of Fine Arts, School of Theatre and Dance (Round Table Players); and Moody’s monograph, “Demystifying the Profession: Helping Junior Faculty Succeed,” invited junior faculty, senior mentors, administrators and preregistered guests will share insights for fine-tuning mentoring skills and helping junior faculty thrive — particularly non-majority faculty.

Series events in September and October are open to the public and require no preregistration. The November “Conversation about Faculty Diversity, Recruitment and Retention” will be held in the Reitz Student Union (locations are specific to the event) with limited seats available for preregistration.

For more information, contact Debra Walker King, associate provost for faculty development, at (352) 392-6004. To request participation in the November “Conversation about Faculty Diversity, Recruitment and Retention” events, e-mail King at roundtable@ufl.edu.