1.     COVID-19 Faculty Reflections.  We are still conducting our exploration of the ways in which faculty are managing their lives during COVID-19. As we have said in our earlier announcements, our aim is to chart faculty experiences with the intent of providing a solid, empirically based foundation on which to make decisions as the university grapples with the changes wrought by COVID-19. So far, we have collected twenty-seven reflections from faculty across all colleges and ranks. The faculty who have contributed reflections have commented that they’ve found the process of writing them useful in making sense of their own lives and experiences in this unprecedented time. We have also been drawing from themes in the data thus far in our suggestions for faculty programming in the coming months. In other words, we’re still interested in hearing from you! All faculty are eligible to participate. Please email Sarah Trainer at trainers@seattleu.edu for information.

 2.     Proposed Revised Promotion Guidelines Activities. Fall Quarter was a time of intense work and listening by the SU ADVANCE team around the proposed revised guidelines for promotion to full professor – guidelines that have been revised to be both more inclusive and more aligned with the SU mission. Most of this work was carried out by the SU ADVANCE “Guidelines Working Group” composed of Drs. Jenny Loertscher, Colette Taylor, and Kristi Lee. After a summer spent revising the promotion guidelines draft to reflect feedback from the faculty feedback survey (see Newsletter 2 for more details), the Guidelines Working Group met with the Academic Assembly, the Deans’ Council, the Associate Deans’ Council,  the University Rank & Tenure Committee, members of the University Handbook Revision Committee, the entire SU ADVANCE Guidelines Task Force, and SU ADVANCE team members involved in faculty mentoring. Multiple rounds of revisions reflecting the ensuing feedback were undertaken. This has truly been a process that reflects our Participatory Action Research process. To cap off the process, the Working Group facilitated an Open Faculty Forum on January 14, 2021 to present their work to the community. A lively Q&A session followed the presentation. We submitted a final draft of the proposed revised guidelines to the University Handbook Revision Committee on January 25, 2021. A copy of this draft is currently available on the SU ADVANCE website at https://www.seattleu.edu/advance/programs-and-initiatives/revised-promotion-guidelines-initiative/

 3.     Winter Quarter Mentoring Opportunities. In Winter 2021, Angelique Davis will continue offering her yearlong workshop series for associate professors who identify as faculty of color. This series kicked off in December 2020, met again in early January 2021, and will continue to meet through Spring Quarter of 2021, with Dr. Davis focusing on current challenges and ongoing support for this cohort. In addition, Drs. Jacoby and O’Brien will offer mentoring opportunities for deans, associate deans, departmental chairs, and program directors, focusing on the specific challenges the pandemic and the budgetary crises are presenting to faculty in administrative positions, as well as offering insights into the ways in which the proposed revised guidelines will affect departments. SU ADVANCE sessions will be conducted remotely for the rest of the academic year because of the continuing limitations imposed by the pandemic.

4.     Outreach and Awards. We are very pleased to announce that Dr. Agnieszka Miguel, Chair of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department and a core member of SU ADVANCE, was recently named a Fellow of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE). The Grade of Fellow is one of unusual professional distinction and conferred by the ASEE Board of Directors upon a member with outstanding and extraordinary qualifications. Currently, Dr. Miguel serves as First Vice President and Vice President for External Relations of ASEE. Together with our Research & Program Coordinator, Dr. Sarah Trainer, Dr. Miguel presented our initial findings from the SU ADVANCE COVID-19 Faculty Reflections research at the virtual CoNECD conference on January 26, 2021. Information from the conference is available here: https://conecd.pathable.co/