Monday Memo March 20, 2017

Dear Colleagues,

I trust Spring Break provided its intended refresher, although not the warm sunshine I had hoped for Louisville. There are only five weeks left in the semester, so we have a lot of learning, research, and engagement to fit in before Derby. 

We are mourning the tragic death of Savannah Walker, a double major in Communication and Sports Administration and one of our champion debaters, who was one of five people shot while attending a concert over the weekend. She had started the Walker Scholarship Fund to honor her late mother, and this scholarship will now also help to commemorate Savannah’s life. For more information on the scholarship you can visit the Facebook page created in her honor, In Memory of Savannah Jeanne Walker.

To quell any unfounded rumors, I want to reassure you that the funds assigned to Arts & Sciences will be completely returned by June 30, with salary lines that have been vacated by faculty and staff since July 1, 2016 and some of the fiscal year 2015-16 carryover funds returned to us. With any cut to our budget, my goal always is to minimize the harm to our college. For the broader university budget picture, I encourage everyone to attend Interim President Postel’s update today at 2pm in the Floyd Theater or Wednesday at 4pm in the HSC Auditorium. 

Sincerely,

Kimberly Leonard
Kimberly Kempf-Leonard
Dean

Kudos

Biology Ph.D. students Evan Gora and Clinton Belott awarded NSF grants
Biology Ph.D. student Evan Gora was awarded a Graduate Research Internship Program (GRIP) grant from the National Science Foundation to continue his research at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in Panama. This competitive award adds another $5,000 to his existing Graduate Research Fellowship Program award. Gora's faculty mentor Prof. Steve Yanoviak (Biology) is an STRI research associate in Panama.

Biology Ph.D. student Clinton Belott was awarded his first year of funding as a 2017 National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) Fellow.

Prof. Rabin elected to Royal Historical Society
Prof. Andrew Rabin (English) was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

Announcements

College-wide meeting Mar. 28
A&S Dean Leonard and Assistant Dean for Finance Bridget Burke will have their spring staff meeting on Tuesday, March 28 from 9 to 10am in Chao Auditorium. Please mark your calendars so that you can attend. 

A&S Faculty Assembly meeting on 3/24 
The March A&S Faculty Assembly Meeting will be this Friday from 2 to 3:15pm in Strickler 102. Agenda items include a degree proposal, a report on recent faculty salary equity adjustments, and a vote on revised budget resolutions from Professors Susan Jarosi and Avery Kolers. Although staff are not voting members of the Assembly, they are welcome to attend. 

Faculty needed to serve on College and university-wide committees
The Committee on Committees is now soliciting nominations for the following positions on College and University-wide committees to be vacated at the end of the Spring 2017 semester. Unless otherwise noted, all terms are three-year terms. The College’s standing rules prevent a faculty member from serving consecutive full terms on the same committee. 

  • Academic Discipline and Student Grievance: Two (2) faculty from Natural Sciences. Persons elected to this committee must have at least two years of service on the faculty. 
  • Admissions and Appeals: One (1) Humanities, one (1) Natural Sciences, and (1) Social Sciences representative. Persons elected to this committee serve two-year terms.
  • Committee on Committees: One (1) Humanities representative. 
  • Curriculum Committee: One (1) Humanities representative and one (1) Natural Sciences representative. 
  • Faculty Salary Committee: One (1) Humanities, one (1) Natural Sciences, and one (1) Social Sciences representatives. Persons elected to this committee last year were not elected to serve full terms and are, therefore, eligible to stand for re-election. 
  • Personnel: One (1) Humanities representative. Persons elected to the Personnel Committee must be tenured at the time of election. Chairpersons and persons serving on departmental personnel committees may not serve on the College’s Personnel Committee. 
  • Planning and Budget: One (1) Humanities representative. Department chairs may not serve on Planning and Budget. 
  • Research: One (1) Humanities representative and one (1) Social Sciences representative. 
  • Technology and Facilities: One (1) Humanities representative. 

We are seeking nominees to fill anticipated vacancies on the General Education Course Committee, the Graduate Council, the Undergraduate Council, and the University Faculty Grievance Committee. Finally, A&S also needs to elect four senators. If you have questions, please contact Dwain Pruitt.

New Online Toolkit for A&S Advancement
As advancement plays an increasingly important role in higher education, we want to give you as many tools as we can to make your advancement-related activities – event planning, promotion/marketing, and fundraising – easier. To that end, we have revised our A&S Advancement Resources page to make it less cumbersome to navigate. We are now calling it the Toolkit for A&S Advancement and the new URL. In addition to it flowing better, we are responding to feedback from faculty and staff in the College by adding a few new features:

1) A&S Resource Scheduler tool – You can now reserve/check out certain event supplies, specifically café tables and table cloths, a portable Bluetooth PA and speaker for music and announcements, signage, an A&S table cloth (rectangle), a portable 5” table, easels, a portable lectern, a digital camera, and a name tag printer for use with Attend.com software. 

2) Access to Adobe Creative Cloud design software – Many staff and faculty indicated they would like access to Adobe Creative Suite to design flyers and other small projects but felt the cost of the software was out of reach. In response to that expressed need, we installed the entire Adobe Creative Cloud software, including InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, and Acrobat on a workstation in Gardiner 340. Using the same check out system as above, you can reserve the workstation for the length of time that you need. If you have small print jobs, you are welcome to use the color printer in Gardiner 240. Bigger jobs or jobs with bleeds will need to be sent to Print Services. 

3) Consultation – If you can’t do the design yourself, you can now request a design consultation with Jason Seitz in our office. If the job is not too big and time allows, he can help. If not, he can provide recommendations as to who to call for help. 

Please take a moment to look over the site and forward your feedback and suggestions to the Dean's Communications Team. 

Teaching Innovation Award
This award will be presented to a full-time faculty member or team of faculty members who have excelled in their implementation of innovative teaching practices. The award is intended to recognize and encourage the use of student-centered, evidence-based practices that enhance student learning. The following criteria will be considered in the selection process: use of student-centered, evidence-based pedagogy; originality of the teaching strategy or the implementation (e.g., courses with enrollments over 200 students); impact on student learning or engagement; potential for wider adoption within or among disciplines; and scalability.

A letter of nomination that describes the teaching innovation, what motivated the innovation and how it impacted student learning or engagement may be submitted to Prof. Linda Fuselier by Monday, March 27, 2017. Self-nominations are encouraged. 

'Ask HR' session Mar. 23
Do you have a question about your benefits, leave or a policy, but your day gets away from you before you can make a trip over to HR or even call? The UofL Human Resources department is going to come to you to answer your questions. Reps from each area of HR will be available on March 23 in the lobby of the Shumaker Research Building to answer HR-related questions and provide guidance and resources. Those attending can also enter to win a UofL leather-bound journal. More information about HR’s visits around campus is available online. 

Important Notice: IRB initial submissions will not be received by the IRB if study personnel are missing Human Subjects Training
On April 1, 2017, iRIS will “stop” IRB Initial Submissions that have personnel who are not showing current CITI Human Subjects Training in the iRIS system. Proof of training for the personnel must be submitted to the iRIS Help Desk. Submissions will not be routed to the IRB until the training has been updated in the iRIS system. Details on how to check training can be found online. For more information, email. 

In the News

Technology is at the forefront of the latest UofL art gallery (WHAS-11, 3/7/17) - Prof. Chris Reitz (Fine Arts) on the new exhibition, "Painting in the Network," which runs through April 8 at UofL's Cressman Center for Visual Arts.

Animal standards law all bark, no bite (WAVE-3, 3/7/13) - On a 2016 study by Department of Sociology professor Patricia Gagne and fourth-year Ph.D. student Jennifer Sinski, which looked at the conditions of animal shelters across Kentucky.

Yes, professors are dangerous (The Courier-Journal, 2/28/17) - Prof. Ricky Jones (Pan-African Studies) on rhetoric against "liberal professors."

Shelbyville program examines elections’ impact on black Americans (The Sentinel-News, 3/3/17) - A panel will examine the presidential election's impact. 

UofL conference to examine discrimination against Muslims (WYMT, 3/14/17) and University of Louisville conference to examine discrimination against Muslims (The State Journal, 3/14/17) - On the 'Islamaphobia' conference organized by the Middle East and Islamic Studies Program scheduled for March 27.

#Blessed: How Louisville Developers Are Resurrecting Old Churches (WFPL, 3/15/17) - Prof. Steve Watkins (Humanities) on restoring former churches for commercial use.

Sex abuse lawsuit exposes Kentucky loophole allowing embattled officers to quit and leave problems behind  (FOX-41, 3/17/17) - John Reed, associate director of the UofL Southern Police Institute, on the limits of police departments to discipline former officers.