Holistic Faculty Development, Education and Empowerment
One way that SU ADVANCE systematically pursued cultural change at Seattle University was through holistic faculty formation and mentoring opportunities. Pilot training sessions hosted by SU ADVANCE began in early 2021 and continued until the end of the grant cycle in mid-2022.
Overview
The NSF-funded SU ADVANCE Grant ended August 2022, but initiatives to implement ADVANCE-related objectives continue under the grant PI, Jodi O'Brien. Dr. O'Brien is leading this work in her role as Special Assistant to the Provost. Future workshops and sessions will be held beginning in Fall 2022 under the auspices of the Provost's Office and in collaboration with entities like the Center for Faculty Development.
“I am so happy to see that this program is not doing a thing to fix women! Instead, it is focusing on structural change.” —NSF Review Team Member
Workshops, Listening Sessions and Events
Q&A Session for recently tenured faculty about how to formulate their Holistic Faculty Development Plan, Held May 2022
Co-Sponsored by SU ADVANCE and the Center for Faculty Development
This session was exclusively for associate professors who had been recently tenured and aimed to apply for promotion to full professor from Fall 2024 onward under the university’s revised Promotion Guidelines for Full Professor. More sessions for this cohort are planned for Fall 2022.
After AY2022-2023 and AY2023-2024, faculty seeking promotion will need to produce evidence of a thoughtful, integrated promotion file, including a multi-year Holistic Faculty Development Plan (HFDP). Recently tenured faculty therefore need to begin mapping out an HFDP in order to apply for promotion in subsequent years.
In this session, the group discussed the following questions, designed to help faculty begin to map out an HFDP:
- What is my professional impact?
- What is the relevance of my professional contributions and to whom?
- What are the unifying themes of my professional life?
- What am I passionate about professionally?
- How would I describe my specific forms of expertise?
- Who am I professionally and what support and resources do I need to live into this?
There are no slides available from this session.
A Mentoring the Mentors Informational Session, Held May 2022
Facilitated by Jodi O'Brien and sponsored by the SU ADVANCE Program
Implementing the aims of SU ADVANCE involves multiple levels of training, including formative training and workshopping for faculty mentors, evaluative committees, and individual faculty. This Spring Quarter 2022 session was one in a series intended to familiarize mentors with mentoring for holistic faculty development. As we discussed in this session, a faculty mentor can be a dean, an associate dean, a chair, a peer, and/or someone in the Center for Faculty of Development (to name a few possibilities). Most candidates will benefit from a "network" of mentors, each of whom contribute advice and support in a different capacity.
This session focused specifically on mentoring for the Holistic Faculty Development Plan. Future sessions are planned for Fall 2022.
This session did not rely on a new PowerPoint, centering instead on discussion and Q&A. To access a detailed set of slides describing the HFDP, please open the "February 2022 Q&A about the HFDP" entry and then click on the associated file.
Writing Workshop Part 2 held in April 2022 for Faculty Applying to Full Professor in Fall 2022 and Fall 2023
Co-Sponsored by SU ADVANCE and the Center for Faculty Development
This April session was a follow-up to a February workshop and was intended to provide support and opportunities for writing and reflection to faculty aiming to apply for promotion in the next two years under the university’s revised Promotion Guidelines for Full Professor.
As a reminder, faculty seeking promotion in AY 2022-2023 or AY 2023-2024 do not need to produce evidence of a multi-year Holistic Faculty Development Plan (HFDP). Faculty seeking promotion during this period do, however, need to produce evidence of a thoughtful, integrated file.
This session did not rely on a new PowerPoint, instead focusing on a discussion of the recently updated submission requirements guide.
An updated submission "requirements" guide to help faculty who are engaged in writing their tenure and promotion statements is available here: https://www.seattleu.edu/academicaffairs/policies/
This submission guide is a companion document to the university's revised promotion guidelines.
Writing Workshop for Faculty Applying to Full Professor in 2022–2023 and 2023–2024
Co-Sponsored by SU ADVANCE and the Center for Faculty Development
This writing workshop was for faculty intending to apply for promotion in AY2022-2023 and AY2023-2024.
The university’s revised promotion guidelines for Full Professor include a new requirement for faculty to develop their own “Holistic Faculty Development Plan” (HFDP), beginning fall 2022. The HFDP provides faculty an opportunity to articulate their own individual professional trajectory and interests. This online workshop offered support and opportunities for writing and reflection. Although an HFDP is an individual effort, we discussed some of the generalizable guiding principles that underpin this holistic plan.
February 2022 Writing Workshop for Faculty Applying for Promotion - Slides
Promotion to full professor: Your questions answered about the Holistic Faculty Development Plan
Co-Sponsored by SU ADVANCE and the Center for Faculty Development
Beginning in fall 2022, all faculty applying for promotion to Full Professor will be required to develop a “Holistic Faculty Development Plan” (HFDP) that articulates their own professional trajectory and interests.
Building on the informational sessions held in December 2021 (please scroll down to our Past Workshops section on this same page to see slides from these sessions), this Winter Quarter Zoom session included general Q&A, as well as small-group discussion. All faculty who have questions about the new guidelines, the new HFDP requirement, and/or the promotion process were welcome to attend.
I Like the New Guidelines! But How Do I Create A Holistic Faculty Development Plan?"
Co-Sponsored by SU ADVANCE and the Center for Faculty Development
In June 2021, the SU Board of Trustees voted to formally adopt the SU ADVANCE proposed Revised Promotion Guidelines for Full Professor. The revisions went into effect immediately, although faculty seeking promotion in the 2021-2022 academic year were considered an "intermediate group" and therefore did not need to fulfill some of the new requirements, including the development of a "Holistic Faculty Development Plan" (HFDP).
Faculty seeking promotion in subsequent years will need to begin mapping out an HFDP. Ideally, this will be an opportunity to think deeply about intentional career development. This information session to discuss the HFDP was intended to support faculty as they began mapping out their HFDPs.
Now that the revised guidelines for promotion to full professor have been formally adopted, SU ADVANCE has begun meeting with members of each of Seattle University's individual college and school personnel committees to discuss the implications for their assessment of promotion files. Recognizing the different cultures and practices across these groups and disciplines, we are initiating conversations with each committee that are based on relevant, hypothetical faculty case studies. The focus of all the workshops remains on expanding our institutional metrics and evaluatory assessments of "what counts" in faculty work. As of January 2022, we have met once each with the committees of Nursing, Education, Law, Albers, Arts & Sciences, and Science & Engineering. Because this is an ongoing, iterative process, we anticipate more rounds of meetings later in 2022.
Earlier this month, the SU Board of Trustees voted to formally adopt the SU ADVANCE proposed Revised Promotion Guidelines for Full Professor.
As we move forward with the implementation of the revised guidelines, we are especially aware that faculty planning to submit files for promotion over the next two years have many questions about how these new guidelines will affect them in this process. SU ADVANCE and Faculty Services held a Q&A and general discussion about this transition period in an information session on June 24, 2021. Twenty-three faculty considering promotion in upcoming years attended the event.
A Workshop Series on Pathways and Challenges toward Promotion to Full Professor as a Faculty of Color
SU ADVANCE hosted a workshop series over the 2020-2021 academic year to discuss and provide support for the unique challenges and the opportunities experienced by faculty of color who are associate professor in rank.
Angelique Davis, professor in the Department of Political Science, an SU ADVANCE Fellow, and an NCFDD-trained Faculty Coach, facilitated the workshop sessions.
Notably, the Seattle University Task Force on Diversity and Inclusive Excellence Report recommends boosting our capacity to retain talented faculty of color and to facilitate professional development opportunities. Reports emerging from around the country indicate the COVID-19 Pandemic and political turmoil of 2020 and 2021 makes these recommendations critical (in terms of fostering institutional health and an inclusive climate), even as resources at many institutions shrink.
Phase III of the SU ADVANCE program calls for us to institutionalize our transformed promotion policies through broad cultural change and infrastructure development. These transformations are intended to be more inclusive of the full range of SU faculty activities, work, and expertise.
This phase will eventually include workshops for Deans, Associate Deans, Chairs, Program Directors, and evaluation committees, workshops that will focus on holistic faculty development and evaluation. We have begun by hosting a three-part pilot workshop with the Deans and Associate Deans: Part 1: Reimagining What Counts; Part 2: Holistic Faculty Development: Case Studies; and Part 3: Reflections and Concerns.
We convened for the first time in Winter Quarter 2021 and met twice more during the Spring Quarter 2021. Robust and productive discussion ensued.
In Spring 2020, with the SU Office of Diversity & Inclusion, SU ADVANCE Co-Hosted a Listening Session on Pathways and Challenges of Faculty of Color Toward Promotion to Full Professor.
In Fall 2020, SU ADVANCE Co-Hosted a three-session Thematic Learning Community for faculty focused on revisioning faculty scholarship within an Ignatian Research Paradigm, entitled Reimagining the "Impact Factor": The Ignatian Research Paradigm