SUBJECT: Faculty Excellence Committee Update

Dear colleagues, 

I hope you are doing well. 

I’m writing to provide an update on the great work being advanced by the Faculty Excellence Committee — a group that was launched in 2021 as part of the campus’s strategic planning process – Go Blueprint for Success. 

The committee — consisting of faculty members from each of the four colleges — is responsible for developing plans and projects that will allow our university to recruit, retain, develop, support and engage faculty who are passionate and at the forefront of their fields and work in a collaborative manner. In particular, the committee has been focusing on ways in which the Boyer model of scholarship (link to original article) can be leveraged in ways to expand the definition of scholarship and research on our campus. 

During the 2021-2023 academic year, the committee offered to the colleges recommendations for incorporating innovation and entrepreneurship language within the existing promotion and tenure policies. That effort was the result of our involvement in the “PTIE” (Promotion and Tenure Innovation & Entrepreneurship) consortium which produced this report. CASL has already adopted some of the recommendations and the other colleges are considering them. 

For the 2022-2023 academic year, the committee is conducting an assessment of the annual review process for tenure stream faculty members with the goal of making recommendations on ways to incorporate the Boyer model. In addition, the committee is exploring a variety of options to support faculty development and training in Boyer model type research and scholarship.

Please feel free to connect with me if you have any questions or suggestions. 

Regards,

Mitch

Mitchel A. Sollenberger, Ph.D.

Associate Provost and Professor of Political Science