August 2016

As I embark on my second year as provost, I have been reflecting on the accomplishments of the past year. Thanks to your efforts, 2015-16 was an exciting year of progress at Marquette! There is much more to do, of course, and we have built a great deal of momentum for the year ahead. One of the challenges we face in these moments of progress is communication. While we have many mechanisms for discussion, they are not always foolproof.

One area where we often fall down is communicating about new initiatives that are under development. As provost, I consider you, the faculty, my primary constituency; therefore, I would like to ramp up our attempts to keep you informed about emerging efforts — and to invite you to participate in them. To help, we will be issuing this newsletter once or twice a semester to let you know what new efforts, initiated by your colleagues and our office, are underway at the university and how you may participate and provide input. These “Short Takes” (and many thanks to Gary Meyer for coming up with the name for the newsletter), are not intended to be full accounts, but rather to signal what is happening and to provide you with a contact and conduit into the effort, if you wish to contribute.

I hope you will find the POST useful and wish you all the best for the upcoming academic year!

-Dan Myers, Provost

Office of Faculty Affairs website

The Office of Faculty Affairs has launched a new website especially for faculty, which includes relevant and timely News and Events; opportunities and resources for Faculty Development; and Quick Links to documents, sites, and offices, such as the Faculty Handbook, the academic calendar and the Center for Teaching and Learning.

The website also contains three interactive sections. Just For Fun is a place to share resources with other faculty, such as interesting books, useful websites, teaching tips, apps, etc. Cheers, where faculty accomplishments are recognized and celebrated on a rotating basis (nominations welcome). And Temperature check, where faculty are invited to share ideas, concerns and suggestions, as well as provide feedback to specific questions posted by university leaders.

Comments and feedback can be submitted to Dr. Gary Meyer.

Meet our new faculty

Marquette welcomed more than 60 new full-time faculty to campus, and this year the New Faculty Orientation was enhanced and designed to help new faculty connect to each other, to campus resources and to the broader Milwaukee community. As part of orientation, each new faculty member was asked to complete the following three statements: 1) During my first year on campus, I’d like to… 2) I’d like to connect with colleagues interested in… 3) I’d like to learn more about... Please visit the faculty affairs website to learn more about our new faculty and see how they answered these questions.

For more information on New Faculty Orientation contact Dr. Gary Meyer.

Graduate School

We have announced our reorganization with the purpose of growing graduate enrollment. Toward that end, we have created three recruiter/liaison positions that link specific graduate programs with specific recruiters in one of three areas: humanities/social science, allied health and STEM. These Graduate School recruiters will work closely with the graduate programs to develop effective recruitment strategies. The Graduate School has also created a position for alumni relations and student development, and has implemented a new software system called “Slate,” which will improve the student relationship management process, streamline the application process, as well as the application review process to make admissions decisions more timely. Importantly, this reorganization was done at less-than-current costs by reducing higher level administrative effort and reorganizing internal duties.

We will organize a campus-wide 3-Minute Thesis competition for all master’s and Ph.D. students. Held the third week of February, the competition will help students develop presentation and public speaking skills. Participating students will present their research to an educated lay audience in three minutes or less using only one PowerPoint slide. The winner will receive a prize and will be eligible to participate in the Midwestern 3-Minute Thesis competition held by the Midwestern Association of Graduate Schools.

For more information please contact Dr. Doug Woods.

Update on core revision process

Entering its second year, the core revision process will move into its next phase. After campus-wide listening sessions and surveys, working proposals were submitted to UBUS, CCRC and Academic Senate. These bodies provided feedback and guidance on next steps. Provost Myers reviewed all feedback and has recommended a revised core that seeks to incorporate: a) some form of first-year experience, b) a sequenced or tiered structure, c) greater integration across courses and better connection between majors and the core curriculum, and d) a culminating experience with an intentional experiential component. Members of the faculty will be once again asked to share their expertise through participation on task force groups that will work on specific proposals for how each element can be delivered. More information on the process can be found on the core revision website. Additional information on the core revision process were included in the email you received last week. Specific comments and feedback can be submitted to Dr. Sarah Feldner, director of the Core of Common Studies.

Diversity and Inclusion

The announcement on the new Associate Director for Hispanic Initiatives will be released soon.

In keeping with recommendations from the climate study, the Office of Institutional Diversity and Inclusion will lead an effort to institute Employee Resource Groups at Marquette this fall. We have identified five to six groups for a pilot project for the 2016-17 academic year. We will also convene a small group to explore employee education and training associated with diversity and inclusion, as recommended in both the climate study and President’s Task Force on Equity and Inclusion reports.

We welcome Drs. Jean Grow and Lucas Torres as OIDI Fellows. Drs. Grow and Torres will develop initiatives with the potential for high impact on Marquette’s diversity and inclusion efforts.

We also welcome Sergio Gonzalez and Desiree Valentine as 2016-17 Mitchem Dissertation Fellows. Gonzalez, a doctoral student in history at UW – Madison, will be in residence in the History Department, while Valentine, a Marquette alumna and doctoral student in Penn State’s Philosophy Department, will join the Philosophy Department for the year.

For more information please contact Dr. William Welburn.

Marquette Forum

As part of the greater Milwaukee community, Marquette is committed to engaging in respectful and open conversations on the most important social issues. Toward that end, the university is launching a Marquette Forum to engage students, faculty and staff in a year-long series of conversations that bring together national experts and the Marquette and the Milwaukee communities.

This inaugural year will explore the theme “Freedom Dreams Now.” For historian Robin D.G. Kelley, “freedom dreams” is a way of talking about how African-American thinkers and activists have consistently affirmed the power of the imagination to transform society. In a year-long campus forum of lectures, films, discussions, dialogue dinners and other events, Marquette invites the campus and Milwaukee communities to dive deep into thinking about 20th and 21st century Black freedom struggles and the multitude of freedom dreams they inspire, locally and around the world. An announcement with details on upcoming events will be released soon.

For more information, please contact Dr. John Su.

Center for Gender and Sexualities Studies

In 2016, through the Center for Gender and Sexualities Studies, Marquette joined a collaborative of universities and organizations who have made an active commitment to invest in research and scholarship on the lives of women and girls of color. In the coming weeks, the CGSS will issue a call for proposals from faculty and faculty-led teams, in conjunction with staff, students and local community members, that examine issues that face women and girls of color in the United Sates, particularly in the Midwest. For more information, please contact Dr. Angie Harris.

Reinforcing our commitment to scholarship on women and girls of color, the CGSS welcomed its first postdoctoral fellow, Dr. Heather Montes Ireland, a recent graduate from Indiana University in gender studies with a minor in Latino studies. Dr. Montes Ireland will aid in CGSS research, help coordinate gender-based programming through the Center for Intercultural Engagement and the Women’s Innovation Network, and teach for the Women’s and Gender Studies Program. Dr. Montes Ireland’s courses will include Introduction to Women and Gender Studies (WGST 1001) in the fall and spring semesters, as well as courses in intersectionality and sexualities. For more information, please contact Dr. Montes Ireland.

Arts @ Marquette committee report

This report provides an analysis and evaluation of the state of the arts at Marquette, with strategies and recommendations for improvements. For more information contact Dr. Kimo Ah Yun.

Beyond Boundaries

The Board of Trustees approved enhancements made to Beyond Boundaries over the past academic year at their meeting on April 27, 2016. Please take a few minutes to visit our strategic planning website, review the new objectives and tactics, take a look at the dashboards, and provide any feedback or suggestions you may have.