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Monday, January 08, 2024

News

COACHE Survey and Interdisciplinary Efforts

Happy New Year from all of us in the Provost’s Office! We hope the term is off to a good start.

I thought I’d use the first ELT of the term to remind folks of two very important initiatives that we are pursuing this academic year: the COACHE Faculty Job Satisfaction Survey and the Summit on Interdisciplinarity at Carleton.

COACHE Faculty Job Satisfaction Survey

As I have mentioned before, the COACHE survey will open in early February and close in early April. For anyone who might have been on leave or just been otherwise pre-occupied, if this survey doesn’t ring a bell, you can find a description of it and the questions/items on the survey here. We are working with our colleagues in Communications to develop a website where we can list important information, answer questions, and – eventually – post results and outcomes. We’ll send an update when the website is ready to go.

The survey will go to all tenure-track and tenured faculty members as well as faculty on continuing appointments (both full-time and part-time FOCA). Sadly, COACHE guidelines on implementation indicate that visitors as well as tenure-track and FOCA faculty who are in the first year of their appointment at Carleton will not receive the survey, however we will have a variety of post-survey sessions to discuss the results that will include those who do not receive the survey so that we can share the survey results and get feedback on the results.

As mentioned in the October faculty meeting, we are very eager to hear what you all think about a variety of aspects of your work as faculty members without the pressure of sharing opinions publicly. We plan to use the survey results to inform our planning in the Provost’s Office in the coming years. Two faculty members (Bereket Haileab and Kambiz Ghanea-Bassiri) have graciously agreed to work with Todd Jamison (IRA) and me on preparing us for the survey distribution. We will start meeting in winter term to plan and will send out frequent reminders and updates as they become necessary.

Summit: Interdisciplinary Efforts at Carleton

The following is also a friendly reminder that we are hosting a “summit” to discuss issues related to interdisciplinary teaching and learning during this academic year. The summit will include a focus on interdisciplinary programs, but it won’t be exclusive to programs. Everyone is welcome to attend, but we particularly encourage faculty who serve more than one program or whose primary appointment is in an interdisciplinary program to attend.

The goal for the event continues to be to listen to what you all have to say and then see how we can pull it all together, so we will be coming with open ears and a notepad.

The Faculty President has graciously allowed me to co-opt the January 22nd Faculty Forum (4:30-6pm in AGH) slot for this summit. I am writing to you now to remind you of with the event and to ask you: please put it on your calendars!

The following topics are currently on the agenda:

  • Structure
  • Staffing (existing and hiring — constraints and possibilities)
  • Visibility (i.e., how can we get the attention of more students more consistently?)
  • Challenges we haven’t discussed yet (although we will go over some that we have already discussed)
  • Carleton 2033 and interdisciplinary programs

If you have additional ideas for agenda items, please do send them to me.

Clearly, one meeting will not be sufficient, so we are planning to host some lunches following the summit and will invite people to discuss specific topics over the course of the winter and spring terms.

If you have any questions at all about either the COACHE survey or the Summit on 1/22, please do not hesitate to e-mail me.

Thank you for everything you do for Carleton students!

Michelle Mattson

Use of AI by Students in Classes

Generative artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT, Google Bard, and friends are increasingly prevalent in the world, and Carleton, of course, has no immunity from that trend. This is a reminder that your own pedagogical views may lead you to different conclusions from your colleagues about the permissibility, impermissibility, or the requirement of using these tools in your classes. Please make an explicit decision about your own class policy regarding AI tools, and then explicitly describe the corresponding policies for your students.

Winter Term Library Support

As you finalize your research assignments for the Winter Term, your Reference & Instruction Librarians would like to remind you that we are here to help! 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. 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. For those of you with many first year students in your classes, we’d also like to remind you that not all A&I courses received library instruction in the Fall, so you might consider inviting your librarian to introduce themselves and the library’s resources.

A few other notes and reminders:

  • We are excited to welcome Christopher Eaker, our new STEM Librarian. Christopher’s first day is January 3rd, so please reach out to him for STEM-related support or to say hello!
  • If you are planning on incorporating film into your courses, please contact Kate Brooks (kbrooks@carleton.edu), the Reference and Instruction Librarian for Arts and Media.
  • Not sure who your librarian is? Send an email to reference@carleton.edu, and we will get back to you!

Advising

Welcome Back for Winter Term!

Please make note of the important WINTER TERM 2024 Dates and Deadlines. Please be mindful of deadline times as well as dates and make sure that your advisees do the same.

Dates and Deadlines

  • Tuesday, January 9: First Five Week Course Drop/Add Deadline 11:59 p.m.
  • Tuesday, January 9: Ten Week Independent Study and Overload Petition Deadline 5:00 p.m.
  • Tuesday, January 9: Ten Week Course Drop/Add Deadline 11:59 p.m.
  • Friday, January 19: First Five Week Course Late Drop Deadline and S/CR/NC Deadline 5:00 p.m.
  • Tuesday, February 6: Last Day First Five Weeks
  • Wednesday, February 7: First Day Second Five Weeks
  • Monday, February 12: Advising Days (through February 20)
  • Tuesday, February 13: Second Five Week Course Drop/Add Deadline 5:00 p.m.
  • Friday, February 16: Ten Week Course Late Drop Deadline and S/CR/NC Deadline 5:00 p.m.
  • Monday, February 19: Registration for Spring Term (through March 24)
  • Friday, February 23: Second Five Week Course Late Drop Deadline and S/CR/NC Deadline 5:00 p.m.

Advisee Academic Progress

If any of your advisees received a letter from the Academic Standing Committee (ASC) about any number of academic issues (a student is low on credits, a student had unexpected academic difficulty, a student who did not meet previous review requirements), please reach out to them to discuss strategies to address the issues that led to academic difficulties and help them create a plan to address them.

Winter Term Advising Circle: Advising First-Generation Students

First-generation students face unique challenges while navigating the post-secondary landscape. We would like to invite advisers to take part in an advising circle to share best practices and insights on supporting the unique needs of first-generation students on campus. This will be an interactive and collaborative discussion focused on utilizing universal design principles as they apply to student advising. We aim to develop effective advising approaches that go beyond academics and provide holistic support for first-gen student social, emotional, and financial well-being. As a starting point, we ask that you read the following articles: Universal Design in Advising: Principles and Practices and Building First-Generation Student Satisfaction for Students of Color: The Role of Academic Advising.

For those who are new to the concept of “advising circles,” an advising circle is a group of 10-12 faculty and staff advisers who meet once each term to talk about advising, share best practices, and foster a “community of practice” around the important work of academic advising. At this time, invitations to join an advising circle are going to all faculty and staff who are academic advisers. If you are interested in joining this advising circle, please fill out this Doodle poll to indicate preferred meeting date and time.  If you have other questions, you can contact Yansi Pérez. Depending on the number of people who express an interest, we will then assemble advising circles and begin scheduling our meeting(s). Each participant can download an electronic copy of the articles linked above.

Sophomore Summit!

Please encourage your sophomore advisees to participate in the Sophomore Summit on Saturday, January 20, 2024 12:30 – 6pm in Anderson Atrium.

Details on the Sophomore Summit

The Carleton Career Center is hosting the 2nd Annual Sophomore Summit on Saturday, January 20th from 12:30 – 4:00 pm with a dinner in the Great Hall from 4:30 – 6:00 pm for the first 100 students who register.

The Sophomore Summit is designed to introduce sophomore students to the skills that will set them apart in an ever-changing world of work and to begin building their personal and professional networks with Carleton alumni from a variety of backgrounds, industries, and majors. Whether a student has a clear idea of their professional interests or no idea at all, this event is for them! Drawing on the expertise of one of Carleton’s very best career resources – our alumni – this event will complement students’ liberal arts education with industry-specific insights, tap into the extensive Carleton network, and focus on developing their professional interests in a supportive environment tailored to second-year students.

The Sophomore Summit will include:

  • Alumni Career Panels
  • Networking Opportunities with Alumni
  • Application Material Reviews
  • Professional Headshots
  • Keynote Speaker/Dinner in the Great Hall (available for the first 100 students who register)

For more information or to register, see Handshake.

Advising Quick Links

Grants and Fellowships

NEH Institutes for Advanced Topics in the Digital Humanities

The National Endowment for the Humanities Office of Digital Humanities is accepting applications for the Institutes for Advanced Topics in the Digital Humanities. The program supports national or regional (multistate) training programs for scholars, humanities professionals, and advanced graduate students to broaden and extend their knowledge of digital humanities. Through this program, NEH seeks to increase the number of humanities scholars and practitioners using digital technology in their research and to broadly disseminate knowledge about advanced technology tools and methodologies relevant to the humanities. This program aims to bring together humanities scholars, advanced graduate students, librarians, archivists, museum staff, computer scientists, information specialists, and others to learn about new tools, approaches, and technologies, and to foster relationships for future collaborations in the humanities.

Applications for up to $250,000 over three years are due by February 15 for projects beginning September 1, 2024. To learn more about this opportunity, please reach out to Christopher Tassava in the Grants Office.

NEH Dangers and Opportunities of Technology: Perspectives from the Humanities

The National Endowment for Humanities Office of Digital Humanities is accepting applications for Dangers and Opportunities of Technology: Perspectives from the Humanities. The program supports humanistic research that explores the relationships between technology and society, and the impacts technology has on culture, health, social interactions, government, cultural institutions, the environment, and other aspects of life. NEH encourages you to interpret the term “technology” broadly. It is up to you to define and make a compelling case for the technologies you choose to examine. NEH is particularly interested in projects that examine current social and cultural issues that are significantly shaped by technologies and expand understanding of a particular topic in the humanities. You may involve communities affected by these technologies as collaborators or contributors.

Applications for up to $75,000 for a single researcher or $150,000 for collaborative teams over two years are due by September 12, 2024 for projects beginning on or after June 1, 2025. To learn more about this opportunity, please reach out to Christopher Tassava in the Grants Office.

Workshops