UIC Phone (312) Fax (312) E Mail shatz@uic.edu

Transcription

1 U N I V E R S I T Y OF I L L I N O I S AT C H I C A G O Office of the Dean (M/C 159) College of Engineering 851 South Morgan Street Chicago, IL Sol M. Shatz, Ph.D. Visiting Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs UIC College of Engineering Faculty Mentoring Plan Spring 2014 The College of Engineering considers recruitment, development and retention of faculty as a top priority. Success in almost all other areas, including teaching effectiveness and research excellence, stems from having a strong, successful faculty. To promote the development and retention of faculty, the College supports faculty mentoring, both at the college level and at the department level. The Dean takes an active role in establishing an environment that is responsive to the needs of junior faculty. The following mentoring activies are coordinated from the Dean s office: At a minimum, the Dean meets with all tenure-track (untenured) faculty as a group once per semester. These Assistant Professors meetings are coordinated by the Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs, and range from more informal, social get-togethers to more formal workshops or panel session on topics of interest. The invited faculty are encouraged ahead of time to use these meetings to share your ideas, concerns, hopes, fears, etc. The Dean hosts a set of small-group mentoring lunches where 3-4 assistant professors at a time, from different departments, have the full attention of the Dean for the purpose of them hearing directly about important issues facing the College and for the Dean to hear directly about important issues facing individual tenure-track faculty. UIC Phone (312) Fax (312) E Mail shatz@uic.edu

2 The College sponsors an annual research award that is specifically targeted to junior faculty. Nominations come from the departments and are evaluated by a committee chaired by the Associate Dean for Research. Started in Fall 2013, the College runs an annual New Faculty Orientation Session. This complements the new faculty orientation provided by the UIC Office of the Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs. The main objective of this session is to introduce new faculty to the structure, leadership, committees, policies and procedures of the College of Engineering. Started in Spring 2014, the Dean, with the assistance of the Associate Dean for Research, is encouraging and supporting visits of junior, non-tenured faculty to Washington, D.C. expressly to meet research program funding managers. The junior faculty are first mentored and coached by both the Associate Dean and representatives from Lewis-Burke Associates, a government services firm under contract to the University of Illinois. This research funding mentoring program aims to accelerate the progress of junior faculty toward establishing their own, independent, viable research programs which are a necessary part of their professional advancement. Department-level mentoring covers more specific mentoring activities to support growth in teaching and research. Common to most of the plans is the assignment of an individual mentor to each assistant professor (mentee). Specific expectations guiding the relationship between mentors and mentees varies from department to department. The current individual mentoring plans of the departments from the College of Engineering are attached as an appendix. As we move forward in this mentoring plan development process we will work to revise and strengthen these plans, especially based upon direct feedback that will be solicited from the assistant professors by the Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs. Sol Shatz Visiting Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs, College of Engineering p. 2 Tel: (312) ; Fax: (312) ; E mail: shatz@uic.edu

3 Appendix Individual mentoring plans for the six departments of the College of Engineering: Department of BioEngineering (BIOE) Department of Chemical Engineering (ChE) Department of Civil and Materials Engineering (CME) Department of Computer Science (CS) Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering (MIE)

4 UIC Department of Bioengineering Faculty Mentoring Plans The following mentorship practices all are in addition to mentorship from the Department Head, who must be accessible to all faculty and, in particular, regularly reach out to junior faculty to seek their perspective and identify any issues. Tenure Track Untenured faculty Process: Within their first semester at UIC they are assigned a senior faculty member in their general technical area as a mentor. This assignment comes from the Department Head, who has first discussed options with the junior faculty member and has discussed the possibility and expectations with the potential mentor. Mentor Expectations: Meet with the mentee on a regular basis to provide guidance. Advocate for the mentee. Mentee Expectations: Regular meetings with mentor. Inform the DH if there are concerns. Additional mentors for URM and/or women TT/Tenured faculty If the TT/Tenured faculty member is a woman or URM, additional mentorship from outside of the department is sought via the WISE/ADVANCE program run out of the Provost s office or via Diversity Programs run out of Upper Administration. (We don t have any URMs in BioE right now. So, I m not familiar with what exactly is available.) Tenured Faculty at the Associate Professor Level Process: Mentorship from the DH and the assigned mentor(s) during their probationary period may continue. Non Tenure Track Teaching Faculty Process: Mentorship is primarily provided by the Director of Undergraduate Studies, as these faculty are involved in teaching undergraduate courses. In addition, the College of Engineering meets with NTT faculty as a group semesterly or annually to provide mentorship and seek feedback.

5 MENTORING PLAN CHEMICAL ENGINEERING Chemical Engineering currently does not have any teaching track faculty, so we only have a mentoring plan for research and teaching track faculty. Each junior faculty member in the department has a formal mentor. The mentor is appointed a few months after the faculty member has joined the department, so s/he gets to know the senior faculty and can suggest a couple of senior faculty s/he would be comfortable having as a mentor. During this interim period the Department Head performs these mentoring duties informally. The mentoring activities include but are not confined to the following. As other issues come up the mentor can assist the faculty member directly or seek the assistance of the Department Head, who may in turn seek the assistance of the Dean of Engineering. (i) (ii) (iii) (iv) (v) The mentor works with the junior faculty to develop a teaching strategy since the department places a high premium on excellence in teaching in evaluating faculty performance which includes promotion and tenure decisions. This includes providing the junior faculty with course notes from senior faculty if possible who have a reputation for excellence in teaching. In addition the mentor also visits the classes of the junior faculty to provide feedback on her/his teaching as well as helpful and positive encouragement to address any perceived shortcomings. In most instances it is the pace at which a course is taught (being too fast). The mentor offers to review papers and proposals (in general the mentor is in the same broad research area) of the junior faculty, and if possible suggest agencies that would be good funding sources for the faculty member. The mentor when possible suggests possible collaborators on campus or off campus as many research agencies now prefer multi-pi projects, and the senior mentor can help establish these connections. In some cases he will seek the assistance of the Department Head or the Dean of the College to expedite such collaborations if possible. The mentor also meets regularly with the junior faculty to determine if there are any issues that are coming in the way of establishing a vigorous research program and continuing to provide excellent teaching to the students. Some of these may be issues such as service duties (which we try to minimize for junior faculty to the extent possible) becoming too time consuming. In such cases the mentor will meet with the Head to suggest that the junior faculty be relieved of some of these duties. The Department Head also meets with the junior faculty at least once a month, often in a non-formal setting (such as lunch or afternoon coffee) to talk informally about how things are going and if there is anything the department can do to enable the faculty member to be more productive and comfortable in the department. The department often provides funds to enable the junior faculty member to visit funding agencies. These funds are not subtracted from the faculty member s start up package, to encourage such visits.

6 (vi) All junior faculty members have a formal annual meeting with the Head to review their progress towards tenure and any steps they need to take to ensure such progress. For mid career faculty (those who are tenured but at the Associate Professor level usually), there is no formal mentor designated unless the faculty member requests one, but the Department Head carries out many of the functions described above. In addition the department makes every effort to restart a mid-career faculty members research program. The Head tries to obtain industrial funding from local companies to start some research activities. This has enabled mid-career faculty to support graduate students and carry out preliminary studies that have been used to develop ideas for research grants to funding agencies. In addition the Head meets with these midecareer faculty members regularly to discuss their professional progress and the milestones they should establish to move to the next academic level (generally Full Professor).

7 Department of Civil and Materials Engineering (CME) Faculty Mentoring Plan CME Department over the years has developed the following practices in mentoring the faculty members: Assistant Professors The mentoring process involves both informal as well as formal discussions. In general, the majority of informal mentoring is handled by the department head. The process begins from the time that the candidate is interviewed for the position of assistant professor and continues to the point in time for promotion and tenure. In addition, the senior members of the department and especially those faculty members whose areas of expertise are commensurate with the assistant professors participate in the mentoring process. The department formally reviews the activities of the assistant professors in terms of teaching effectiveness, publications, grants and service through yearly reviews by the promotion and tenure committee. In the case, of assistant professors, the promotion and tenure committee consists of all the tenured faculty members with ranks of associate professor and higher. The assistant professor is asked to provide a dossier and CV indicating the extent of their activities since their time of appointment in the department. Following the review and discussions in the committee, the department head conveys the feedback to the assistant professor both in written and verbal forms. Associate Professors The informal mentoring activities for the faculty members in this rank depend on the personality and interest of the associate professors for the process. Depending on the number of faculty members in this rank and the stage in their careers, the department head solicits their input as to their readiness for promotion considerations by the departmental committee. In this case, the promotion and tenure committee consists of all the tenured full professors in the department. In general, if any of the faculty members requests consideration for the promotion to full professor, the department

8 head initiates a formal note to all the associate professors asking them to provide their dossiers if they also wished to apply for the same. The committee meets at the end of May each year and the department head provides the feedback to the associate professors. This process is different than a formal promotion and committee meeting. In general, the department head provides a written note to the associate professor indicating the strengths and weaknesses. The department head also discusses the contents of the committee feedback with the associate professor. In situations where the committee feels that the associate professor is ready for promotion, the department head initiates the promotion process by seeking external referees to comment on the faculty members activities. The promotion and tenure committee meets formally in Fall to discuss the promotion based on the external letters and updated activities of the associate professor. The department does not have a mentoring program for the full professors. Until this year, the department did not have any teaching/lecturers. An informal process for mentoring of the lecturers will be established this year since the department recently hired a lecturer.

9 Computer Science Department Mentoring Plan Each tenure track (TT) faculty member will be offered a mentor during his or her first full semester at UIC. It is expected that the overwhelming majority of TT faculty will choose to have a mentor, and the Department Head will encourage them to do so, but nobody will be forced to accept a mentor. The mentor is a tenured (full or associate) or recently retired active formerly tenured faculty member selected by the head in consultation with the TT faculty member. The mentor will usually be a computer science faculty member, but may occasionally be a faculty member in another department whose research area is very close to that of the junior faculty member. The new faculty member uses their initial time at UIC to familiarize himself/herself with the Department and UIC to decide on a mentor who will be a good fit. Mentors are to meet with their TT faculty member an absolute minimum of twice a semester, and ideally at least monthly to provide the TT faculty member with help with any matter where he or she can use assistance. In addition to the above mentoring plan, the Department has an annual review of every TT faculty member each year from Year 2 onward (and optional in Year 1 for the occasional faculty member who is contemplating going up early for tenure). The purpose of this review is to provide feedback to TT faculty regarding what is needed for a successful tenure application at the end of their probationary period.

10 Faculty Mentoring in the ECE Department Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (MC 154) 1020 Science and Engineering Offices 851 South Morgan Street Chicago, Illinois As part of the process for mentoring junior faculty members in the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) department, each tenure-track assistant professor is assigned a tenured senior colleague, preferably working in the same area of research as the junior faculty, as primary mentor after discussing the choice of the mentor with the junior faculty member. The mentor is expected to meet two or three times a semester to help the junior faculty decide on research, teaching, and service goals, assess progress and identify areas that need additional effort, and discuss the junior faculty's record for P&T consideration and other career-related matters. One other tenured colleague doing research in an area close to that of the junior faculty member is assigned as additional (secondary) mentor to give advice on matters related to research and proposal writing. Each non-tenure track junior faculty member (lecturer or Clinical Assistant Professor) is assigned a non-tenure track senior colleague as primary mentor. The mentor is expected to meet two or three times a semester to discuss career goals mainly pertaining to teaching and service, assess progress and identify areas that need additional effort. Starting in spring 2014, each tenured Associate Professor is assigned an ECE Full Professor as mentor. The mentors are expected to meet with Associate Professors to discuss career goals and progress in research, teaching, and service, and monitor the mentees readiness for being considered for promotion. For mid-career level non-tenure-track faculty, the department head serves the role of mentor. Several retired non-tenure track and retired tenured faculty with outstanding research continue to remain engaged with ECE department teaching and they are a valuable resource in providing mentoring to mid-career non-tenure track faculty as well as to junior faculty. They volunteer to give short talks to give teaching and student-advising tips to junior colleagues and on occasion encourage them to sit in on their lectures for courses that the junior faculty have not taught but may be interested in teaching. The department head meets with all junior faculty at least once a term to review progress in research, teaching, and service, provide help if they have any concerns, give advice on proposal writing and funding opportunities, and listen to any concerns. The department head informally mentors mid-career level faculty and informs them of funding or award opportunities, encourages collaborations, and nominates or encourages faculty to apply for internal or external awards. The department head encourages Associate Professors and recently promoted full Professors to assume a greater role in administrative work and committee chair roles that will help advance their careers, for example by serving as DGS /DUGS or by chairing search or curriculum update committees. Rashid Ansari Professor and Interim Head, Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering ransari@uic.edu Phone (312) Fax (312)

11 MIE Department Faculty Mentoring Plan Each tenure track faculty member is assigned a mentor within his or her first semester at UIC. The mentor is a tenured (full or associate) professor and is selected by the head in consultation with the TT faculty member. The new faculty member uses the first semester to familiarize himself/herself with the Department and decides on a mentor that most closely matches his/her interests. The mentor provides help with any matter that may require his/her assistance and finally assists in preparation of mid-probationary review and tenure papers. The MIE Department also has a Junior Faculty Mentoring Committee to further assist the TT faculty and their mentors in receiving the help that they may need. The Committee consists of all the mentors and is chaired by a non-mentor from tenured faculty. The current chair of the Committee is Carmen Lilley. The meetings of the Committee are called by its chair and may include the TT faculty and/or the head by invitation. The head receives regular feedback from the Committee on matters/ideas that could benefit the TT faculty. As an example, last year, the Committee recommended that the TT faculty be provided with travel fund to attend the NSF CAREER workshop in Reno, NV. This recommendation was implemented. In addition to the above direct mentoring plan, the Advisory Committee of the MIE Department has approved a plan for annual review of each TT faculty member, starting from their second year at UIC. The purpose of this review is to provide feedback to TT faculty regarding what is need for a successful tenure application at the end of their probationary period. The AC has also approved an annual teaching observation plan for TT faculty. Each TT faculty member selects one senior faculty member with strong teaching record for in-class teaching observation. The observation is reciprocal, i.e. the TT faculty member observes the teaching of the senior faculty member and vice versa.