Dear faculty colleagues,
This week’s message will address questions we’ve received along with other faculty-related updates, reminders and opportunities.
New Mental Health Conversations Support Tool
The UT Counseling and Mental Health Center recently launched Mental Health Conversations, a simulation platform that allows faculty, staff and students to practice having important and life-saving conversations with students who are experiencing distress and/or suicidal ideation. The platform also teaches participants when and how to make a referral to campus mental health resources. Practicing simulated conversations allows contributors to develop confidence about having these discussions in real life. While this training does not replace healthcare from a licensed mental health professional, everyone can learn how to respond to student mental health concerns in a caring and appropriate way. The student module will be housed in Canvas while the faculty/staff module will be housed in UT Learn. Learn more here.
Faculty Search Committee Workshops
To support faculty recruiting efforts, the provost’s office holds workshops for faculty search committees. The workshops provide information to help search committee members understand how to yield a wide and diverse pool of candidates, and how to fairly and equitably evaluate them. Workshop topics include: legal dos and don’ts, managing a search committee, active recruiting, excellence and diversity, implicit biases, and much more. The workshop consists of two parts. Part 1 is an online self-guided, asynchronous course that should take approximately 60 minutes to complete. A link to register for this first part can be found here. Upon completion of Part 1, ideally the entire search committee should participate together in Part 2 which offers a guided, one-hour, follow-up discussion using a live Zoom meeting format. The Part 2 discussions are offered monthly (dates listed on this webpage). To sign up for Part 2, use the following registration link. For more information about faculty search committee workshops, please contact Dr. Grayson Hunt.
Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion Community Fair – Tuesday, Nov. 16 at 3:30 pm
In celebration of the Actions that promote Community Transformation (ACT) program and diversity, equity and inclusion work across campus, the Vice Provost for Diversity Office invites you to stop by a campus-wide DEI Community Fair. Posters showcasing ACT projects will be on display between 3:30 and 5 pm, team members will be there to connect and discuss their work, and the Diversity team will be there to hear your own ideas. The ACT program supports members of our campus community to lead projects that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion within their local university environments. You can read more about the latest recipients here.
Collaborative for Access and Equity: A Microsoft – UTexas Partnership (Pilot)
This research-to-practice collaborative (housed in the Texas Center for Equity Promotion) is seeking faculty participants for the Spring, 2022 semester. This collaborative partners disabled students, experts in accessibility, and university faculty in a unique, tailored, and engaging professional development opportunity. Instructors will have the chance to both reflect on proactive accessibility strategies and try out new strategies in your Spring, 2022 course(s). A stipend is available for faculty participants and activities will begin in January, 2022. The majority of the work will take place via online platforms. For more information, see this project overview video. If you’re interested, submit your application by December 1st, 2021. Contact Dr. Stephanie Cawthon for additional information.
Updated Guidance on International Travel
UT System’s updated International Travel Policy considers all international travel as high risk if specific criteria are met, including the World Health Organization’s (WHO) declaration of a global pandemic. All university-related international travel will continue to be reviewed and approved by the International Oversight Committee (IOC) until the WHO rescinds its declaration. For more information on the steps to obtain approval for international travel, follow theInternational Travel Process.
REMINDER: Accepting Applications – Provost Academic Leaders Fellowship Position
The Faculty Affairs team in the Provost’s Office is offering a leadership development opportunity for a professional-track (non-tenure-track) faculty member at the rank of associate professor (or senior lecturer) or higher who is currently employed full-time at UT Austin. This Provost’s Academic Leadership Fellow will collaborate with members of the Provost’s Faculty Affairs team to lead campus-wide efforts focused on career development mentorship for professional-track faculty. More information can be found at this link. Deadline for applications is November 19th.
REMINDER: November 15 Deadline for Texas Global Funding Opportunities
The proposal deadline is fast approaching for the following grants offered by Texas Global: Texas Global Faculty Research Seed Grants, Faculty Travel Planning Grants, Global Virtual Exchange and Global Career Launch. Applications are due Monday, Nov. 15 for the current round of funding. For those preparing proposals that might miss the fall deadline, another round of funding opportunities will be offered in spring 2022, with a submission deadline of Feb. 1, 2022. Information on the spring cycle of funding is forthcoming on the Texas Global funding opportunitiespage.
REMINDER: Accommodations for Students with Disabilities
Unfortunately, there are still significant processing delays for students’ disability accommodation requests. This means that students with verified disabilities might not yet have been able to schedule an intake appointment that leads to formal approval of their necessary accommodations. This leads me to make two requests of our faculty
- Please use compassion and flexibility to find ways to accommodate your students’ learning needs even without the final, formal accommodation letter from our Services for Students with Disabilities team.
- If a student is in distress and needs additional support, please encourage those students to complete an Absence Notification Request with Student Emergency Services to initiate support. Student Emergency Services can provide notifications to faculty for temporary disabilities, remote learning requests due to immunocompromised family members, or for ongoing medical or mental health concerns.
Please reach out with any faculty-related questions to the Faculty Affairs team. For COVID-related questions, please continue to check the Protect Texas Together website for the latest information and guidance.
Stay well,
Tasha Beretvas