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Monday, August 28, 2023

News

Week One Class Schedule and Opening Convocation

Classes will begin on Monday, September 11, at 8:30 a.m. with a special schedule of slightly shortened classes for the day to accommodate Opening Convocation at 3:00 p.m. in Skinner Memorial Chapel. See all the details for Monday’s class schedule and the academic procession. We hope your year gets off to a great start!

One Last Reminder

LEAVES OF ABSENCE. Tenured, tenure-track, PEAR, and continuing faculty members who wish to request a sabbatical or other leave of absence for all or part of the academic year 2024-2025 should do so by October 1, 2023. See the forms and guidelines for expectations while on a leave.

FACULTY DEVELOPMENT GRANTS.  September 8th is the deadline for faculty members to submit proposals for support through several different funds. 

Using AI Tools

This note is a friendly nudge as you are thinking about the new academic year that it is worth including the emergent (and evolving) AI tools like ChatGPT and Google Bard in your planning. That’s true for course design – including thinking about your assignments and your course policies – as well as in other aspects of work at Carleton.  For course policies, students seem hungry to have stated policies in each of their classes (and we know that, as with collaboration with [human] classmates, those policies may differ from course to course or even from assignment to assignment).  As you think about your syllabi, you might consult this helpful set of resources, including sample syllabus statements, developed by George Cusack and growing in part out of the AI Community of Practice group that met regularly in the 2022–2023 year. (See also this Chronicle of Higher Education piece.)

But it is also worth thinking about the role of AI tools in the rest of your professional life: for example, the complex questions of authorship and intellectual property, the risk of the text you enter as a prompt to ChatGPT leaking confidential or proprietary information (e.g., what happens if you paste personal information about a student into ChatGPT as you draft a recommendation letter?), or the potential for bias against non-native speakers in automated AI-detection tools.  There’s also always the risk of factual errors. (See below for an example of a user implicitly sharing information with ChatGPT through a question … and ChatGPT responding by reporting on a particular place and year of birth [both wrong], title [outdated], alma maters [both wrong], and dates of degrees [both wrong].) At the same time, many faculty have found novel and pedagogically valuable ways to incorporate AI tools into their teaching.  So it is worth being aware of the various opportunities, and the various challenges, that accompany the use of AI tools in your professional life.

ChatGPT Example

ChatGPT transcript

Undergraduate Research and Internship Symposium Scheduled for Friday, October 13

This year’s Undergraduate Research and Internship Symposium will be held in the Weitz Commons, from 4:30 pm to 6:30 pm, on Friday, October 13.  As was the case last year, to accommodate the large number of posters we anticipate, and to give student presenters a chance to see some of the other posters, each poster will be presented in one of two sessions.  The first session will be from 4:30 pm to 5:15 pm, then there will be half an hour of transition time, and the second session will be from 5:45 pm to 6:30 pm.

The last day for students to register for the symposium is Thursday, September 28, and the registration form is available on the symposium website.

Faculty Expectations

As we prepare to start the new academic year, this is a reminder of expectations regarding faculty time on campus and participation in important campus events. We are a residential liberal arts college, and as such, your presence on campus and at important community events is part of your responsibility as a faculty member. These expectations were drafted by the Faculty Affairs Committee, and endorsed by the faculty on February 14, 2011. You may find them in the Faculty Handbook.

Prospective Student Class Visits Begin Monday, September 25

As the Admissions Office looks ahead to fall term, they want to give you a sense for when requests will be coming from the Admissions Office regarding class visits. They are seeking to offer class visits M/W/F 1a and 5a and F 3a starting Monday, September 25. Holly Buttrey will be reaching out to confirm availability for 100-level and some select 200-level courses during the week of September 18 after class change activity slows down. Additionally, the Taste of Carleton fly-in program is taking place on Monday, October 8 and Admissions expects to host about 55 seniors all of whom will sit in on a class. More information will be forthcoming.

Message from the R&I Librarians

Do you want to offer your students additional research support? Do you have a research skill in mind you’d like them to learn? Would you like your students to meet their librarian or take a tour of the stacks? If you answered yes to any of these questions, we encourage you to get in touch with your liaison librarian to discuss the variety of services we offer to help support you and your students. Read on for additional information about the library’s blog post, your library liaison, and bringing your A&I students to the library.

This is support that you can take advantage of at any point during the term, so please don’t hesitate to get in touch to discuss your ideas or your students’ research needs. To learn more about how librarians can support your class, check out our department’s blog post for the LTC. Whether you are new to Carleton or have been working with your librarian for years, we are always looking for new ways to build or strengthen our partnerships with faculty. Not sure who your librarian is? Send an email to reference@carleton.edu, and we will get back to you. And for your course’s film or media needs, please contact Kate Brooks, Reference and Instruction Librarian for Arts and Media.

Teaching an A&I this Fall? We invite you to bring your students to the library classroom (Libe 306) so they can get to know their library and liaison librarians! Visiting the library and meeting the Reference & Instruction Librarians during your A&I can be very valuable for students, as this may be the first time students are introduced to library services and resources. Even if your students are not completing a research assignment, there is plenty of information that our first years need to know in order to succeed at Carleton.

Share your Experience as Multilingual Faculty and Staff

Is your first or home language something other than English? Or, do you consider yourself fluent in two or more languages? If so, Melanie Cashin, the Coordinator of Multilingual Writing Support, invites you to share your experiences with the campus community. Responses will be displayed similarly to Multilingual Student Profiles and the First-Generation Faculty & Staff Directory. Multilingual Faculty & Staff Profiles will help increase awareness of linguistic diversity on campus and normalize the experiences of our multilingual international and domestic students.

Syllabus Statements

Many offices and departments are eager to support your students. The Academic Support Center website has syllabus statements that you can include in your syllabi to relay information about how various departments can support your students.

Advising

First-year Student Advisers

If you will be advising first-year students, you have been notified via email already. Please remember to look in the Hub on September 1 to see the roster of first-year advisees you have been assigned and write to them to let them know the location of your first advising group meeting. For the group meetings, we ask that you confirm your plans with my office by filling out the first-year adviser form today, if you have not already done so. Feel free to review the Advising Handbook for a refresher on advising and for some tips for that first meeting with your advisees.

The New Student Week schedule is packed and there are various mandatory events your advisees must attend.  Please schedule your individual advising appointments during the designated times indicated below:

  • Wednesday, Sept. 6, 11:45 a.m.-1:30 p.m., Group Advising Meetings (frosh and their new advisers), various locations reserved by the adviser. Feel free to review
  • Thursday, Sept. 7, 1:30 p.m.-3:30 p.m., Individual Advising Meetings (one-on-one meetings between frosh and their new advisers), location is adviser’s choice.
  • Friday, Sept. 8, 8:00 a.m.-9:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m., Individual Advising Meetings (one-on-one meetings between frosh and their new advisers), location is adviser’s choice

You should remind your advisees that even though there are other activities planned during individual advising meeting times, these are all optional activities and they must prioritize meeting with you.  Peer leaders and all New Student Week staff know this is the case and will also remind students throughout the week.

Annual Advising Workshop

We are kicking off the new academic year with the Annual Advising Workshop in Weitz 236 on Wednesday, September 6 from 8:30 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. As is customary now until we GO LIVE with Workday Student on March 4, 2024, we will hear some Workday updates and learn about some new and exciting advising tools available in Workday. The main panelists for this year’s workshop, Lin Winton, Director of the Quantitative Resource Center, and Emily Seru, Associate Director of Academic Civic Engagement and Scholarship will present useful information about resources available to your advisees as they plan their academic career at Carleton.  

Academic Integrity at Carleton

As you prepare for academic advising during a new year at Carleton, I want to provide you with some materials that you will find particularly useful if you have first-year and sophomore advisees to address issues of academic integrity and to educate them about what constitutes plagiarism, how to cite properly, and how to attend to class-specific policies on collaboration and use of software tools. 

Academic Integrity at Carleton

Understanding Plagiarism

The Advising Handbook

The Advising Handbook has been updated for the new academic year. New advisers should definitely take a look, but experienced advisers should peruse the handbook as well.

Advising Quick Links

Grants and Fellowships

Fellowships and Other Opportunities at the Newberry Library

The Newberry Library has two fellowship opportunities for the 2024-2025 academic year available to ACM faculty. Applications for the Newberry Library Long-Term Residential Fellowship are due by November 1st. Applications for the Newbery Library-Associated Colleges of the Midwest (ACM) Short-Term Fellowship are due December 15th. Learn more about the Newberry Fellowships.

The Newberry Library is also offering a variety of in-person and virtual opportunities including public programs, exhibitions, research centers, scholarly seminars, and group/class visits. Find additional information on their fall opportunities.

Howard Foundation Fellowships at Brown

The George A. and Eliza Gardner Howard Foundation is an independent foundation administered at Brown University. It awards a limited number of fellowships each year for independent projects in selected fields, targeting its support specifically to early mid-career individuals, who have completed at least one major project and demonstrate potential to be future leaders in their fields. Artists and scholars supported by the Howard Foundation are expected to devote a substantial portion of time during the fellowship year to advancing new work.

This year’s fields are (1) Emerging Arts and (2) Science and Technology Studies. Fellowships are $40,000 each and would help support leave time for faculty. If you’re interested in learning more, please reach out to the Grants Office.

Workshops

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