Provost’s Distinguished Service Academy

The Provost’s Distinguished Service Academy (DSA) represents a formal organization of distinguished tenured and senior non-tenure track (NTT) faculty members with extraordinary achievements across their portfolios and in particular in terms of their excellence in mentoring and service to their college, the university, the state of Texas and the nation.

Through campus-wide collaboration, members of the DSA strive to:

• Foster and promote leadership training for UT faculty colleagues that focuses on service, diversity, inclusion, and mentoring-related topics.
• Provide opportunities for other faculty, staff and students to learn how to develop balanced portfolios that integrate excellence in scholarship, teaching and service to promote a research-teaching-service nexus.

News: New Members Announced for the Provost’s Distinguished Service Academy (May 4, 2022)

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Goals

The goals of the Distinguished Service Academy are as follows:

• Recognize and reward outstanding faculty members for extraordinary service and mentoring to students, their department, their school/college, the university, and broader communities.
• Foster and promote leadership training for UT faculty colleagues that focuses on service, diversity, inclusion and mentoring-related topics.
• Provide opportunities for other faculty, staff and students to learn how to develop balanced portfolios that integrate excellence in scholarship, teaching and service to promote a research-teaching-service nexus.

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DSA Resources for Faculty and Administrative Leaders

 

Brief Insights

These videos feature brief insights from DSA members on different topics such as service, diversity, inclusion, and mentoring-related topics.

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Meet the Distinguished Service Academy – About Us and Our Mission

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Being an Effective Mentor

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Finding Effective Mentors

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Authentic Service and Career Development

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Workshops

Meaningful Service and Career Trajectory Workshop

In this workshop, participants will be invited to think about ways to engage in authentic, satisfying service and identify avenues of service that best suit the participants’ interests and career goals. The workshop facilitators will also share personal experiences in service, balancing service with research and teaching, and discuss how the relationship between service and mentorship is reciprocal and interdependent. Participants will leave the workshop with tools to create a career narrative that includes personally and institutionally meaningful and visible service.

Workshop for Tenured and Tenure-Track Faculty

 

Workshop for Professional and Non-Tenure Track Faculty

 

Crafting a Meaningful Service Experience as New Faculty

In this workshop, DSA members discuss ways in which new faculty can work with departmental leadership, mentors, and peers to identify engaging opportunities and avenues of service that best suit the faculty member’s interests and career goals. The workshop facilitators will also share personal experiences in service, balancing service with research and teaching, and discuss how the relationship between service and mentorship is reciprocal and interdependent. Participants will leave the workshop with tips on developing a meaningful mentor/mentee relationship, working with leadership to identify meaningful service opportunities, and important elements to consider throughout your service journey.

 

Academic Leadership in Shaping Faculty Service Experience

DSA members discuss ways that academic and administrative leaders can work with faculty to develop meaningful mentor-mentee relationships, connect faculty with service opportunities that align with their career goals, and the impact of cultural taxation in the academic setting. In this workshop, DSA members share their experiences navigating service opportunities on campus, provide insight for working with faculty to support their career goals, and potential ways leaders can recognize and advocate for meaningful faculty service experiences. A list of resources discussed in this workshop is available for download here.

 

Articles

Service Recognition

• Want to Combat the ‘Privilege Payoff’? Here’s How Inequitable workloads persist across lines of gender and race, but they don’t have to. By Richard Reddick for The Chronicle of Higher Education (article)
• Recognizing Professional Service in an Academic Setting: The Distinguished Service Academy by Loriene Roy, Jen Moore, and Richard Reddick for the Texas Library Journal (article)

Mentorship

• Fierce Mentoring and Communities of Care by Richard Reddick and Lisa Moore for Academe Blog (article)