Ada Howe Kent Faculty Grants available

March 20, 2012 by
Categories: Application Deadlines, Grant Opportunities

To: All Faculty

From: Jim Ralph, Dean of the Faculty

Date: March 20, 2012

SUBJECT: ADA HOWE KENT FACULTY GRANTS

I am pleased to announce that this year we are once again able to invite proposals for Ada Howe Kent grants. These grants offer funds (this year the range will be between $1,500 and $3,000) to faculty who are developing unusually ambitious new courses, exploring new curricular approaches, or are pursuing research or creative projects that would benefit from such support. This initiative was made possible by the Ada Howe Kent Foundation.

Eligibility for Ada Howe Kent grants extends to all faculty members.

Ada Howe Kent grants are normally not awarded for projects that faculty are pursuing on academic leave.

Ada Howe Kent funds must be used between June 1, 2012 and May 31, 2013.

The competition is open to proposals of any kind. You may seek funds for any especially promising project in research, artistic production, or curricular innovation that can benefit from financial support. (If you propose to use your grant for new course development, it is expected that you will repeat the course, so that it can establish itself as a new enrichment of the curriculum).

Priority in awarding funds will be given to applicants who have already sought support from other sources, or to worthy projects unlikely to be funded from more conventional sources. Information on other funding sources is available in the Office of the Coordinator of Sponsored Research at the Library. We will also take into account applicants’ past support from this fund.

Faculty with projects that involve community outreach should consider applying for a Service Learning grant from the Alliance for Civic Engagement. http://www.middlebury.edu/academics/resources/ace/servicelearning/aoegrants

Applicants for an Ada Howe Kent grant should provide a current CV, a brief summary of the project for which support is sought, together with a calendar and detailed budget. Please send the information to Lynn Dunton, Old Chapel 105.

The deadline for applications is Monday, April 16th. Applicants will be notified of decisions by the end of April.

For further information, please contact me (ext. 5908) or Lynn Dunton (ext. 3085).

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Academic Outreach Endowment grants available

March 2, 2012 by
Categories: Grant Opportunities, Teaching Resources

Applications for academic year 2012-13 are now being accepted to fund community-connected academic projects, for both your courses and individual students. This funding is to facilitate faculty experimentation and is an extension of EIA Civic Engagement’s support to faculty for integrating project-based community-connected opportunities into academic courses.

These grants are awarded from an endowed fund called the Academic Outreach Endowment and are available to faculty and returning undergraduate students.  Applications are reviewed for methodologies such as “community-based learning,” “engaged scholarship,” and/or “participatory action research” for engaged learning through addressing real problems and issues in the community—involving reciprocity and reflection—and in particular when the results of that learning have a public benefit. Projects can be local, national, or international. Grants can be awarded to faculty in any academic discipline.

For more information, please refer to the following web site, go/aoe . To apply, complete and return the on-line application form by April 1st. A faculty committee will review and select awardees. Notification will occur by April 15th.

If you have any questions about (or would like help with) the Academic Outreach Endowment grant application process, I am happy to meet individually to discuss your particular interests.

Please note that my office is in the Center for Education in Action: Careers, Fellowships and Civic Engagement, located in Adirondack House. I can also be reached through email (tiffanys@middlebury.edu) or phone (802.443.5082).

With warm regard,

Tiffany

Tiffany Nourse Sargent ’79
Director, Civic Engagement
Center for Education in Action: Careers, Fellowships, Civic Engagement
Middlebury College  |   Middlebury, VT 05753
802.443.5082  |  go.middlebury.edu/eia

 

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CMRS Research Opportunity in UK

February 21, 2012 by
Categories: Grant Opportunities, Professional Development

MEMO
From:   Jim Ralph
Date:    February 20, 2012

Re:      CMRS Professional Development Opportunity

Dear Colleagues,

This is to let you know about a professional development opportunity in the United Kingdom that will be specially funded by the Office of the Dean of the Faculty.

For the past year, Middlebury College has headed a college consortium (including Bates, Smith, Wellesley, Colgate, Carleton and 11 other institutions) that sends American undergraduates to study during their junior year at the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (CMRS) in Oxford.  CMRS is affiliated with Keble College, Oxford, and contains a small research library as well as seminar rooms and a dormitory.  During the summer months, CMRS offers programs for faculty members and graduate students from the consortium colleges and universities.

This summer, from July 3-7, CMRS will host an interactive seminar on “Rhetoric in the 21st Century.”  It will be co-chaired by James J. Murphy, Professor Emeritus of Rhetoric, University of California, Davis, and Dr. Nicholas Crowe, Senior Dean of CMRS.  The speakers will include Sir Brian Vickers, FBA, Senior Fellow, School of Advanced Study, University of London; Peter Mack, Director, Warburg Institute, and Professor of English, Warwick University; and Professor Jennifer Richards, Head of School and Professor of English, Newcastle University.  The fee for attendance at the seminar is £600 (about $900), which includes daily breakfast and lunch, opening dinner, closing lunch, and accommodation at CMRS.  Details can be found at http://www.cmrs.org.uk/research/rhetoric-in-the-twenty-first-century-summer-2012.

Because of Middlebury’s ties with CMRS, the Office of the Dean of the Faculty will reimburse the £600 fee for any faculty member who wishes to attend the seminar.  This reimbursement will not count against each faculty member’s professional development funds.  Air-fare and other costs of transportation, however, will have to be requested from normal professional development funds.

This would be a good opportunity for you, not only to attend an academic seminar that might be of interest, but also to carry out research in the United Kingdom.  The fact that the Olympic Games begin in London on July 27 may also attract your attention to this offer!

Please note that the number of participants in the seminar is limited to 20, and you will have to apply for a place.  The application form can be found at www.cmrs.org.uk/research/C21stRhetoricApplication.doc.  If you have further questions about the seminar or CMRS, you can address them to Nicholas Crowe at ncrowe@cmrs.org.uk, or to Paul Monod in the History department, who represents Middlebury College on the consortium board.

 

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LPDF funding

February 15, 2012 by
Categories: Application Deadlines, Grant Opportunities

MEMO

From:   Jim Ralph

Date:    February 15, 2012

Re:      Long-term Professional Development Fund (LPDF) for Tenured Faculty

Guidelines and procedures for 2012-13

Dear Colleagues,

This is an invitation to apply for funding under the Long-term Professional Development Fund. This program was developed to complement the yearly faculty professional development fund (FPDF).  Tenured colleagues who need multiple-year funding for their long-term research and course development projects (current or future), should consider applying.

The goal of this fund is to encourage innovative and significant professional development opportunities. It supports travel, research assistance, computer equipment, training in technology, and taking courses.

Eligibility:

All tenured faculty, including those on regular leave, are eligible to apply to LPDF. Colleagues who have received funds from endowed chairs or enrichment funds from other College sources, will not be eligible for LPDF.  LPDF grants are considered to be once-in-a-career awards, so applications from previous recipients will have low priority.  During the time that you have LPDF funding you are still eligible for FPDF for travel unrelated to this project.

Application Procedures and Deadline:

The deadline for LPDF applications for projects beginning in fiscal year 2012-2013 is Monday, March 12, 2012.  A form is enclosed with this message.  Applications should be sent to the office of the Dean of the Faculty (c/o Lynn Dunton). LPDF application form revised 2-6-12

Project Duration and Funding:

The duration of an LPDF project should be in the range of 3 to 5 years, with a total project cost in the neighborhood of $4,500 to $13,000.  If you receive enrichment funds during the period of your LPDF grant, you will be asked to relinquish your LPDF funding.

Reporting:

To follow the progress of each project and to determine whether any changes should be made to the terms and needs of the project, recipients will be expected to submit an annual update each June.  The summary (no longer than one page) will be used to approve the continuation of the grant for the following fiscal year.  A meeting will be scheduled with the Dean of the Faculty if the project has changed significantly from the original proposal.

I anticipate that LPDF will serve your needs well, and I look forward to receiving proposals from many of you.  If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.

 

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Study Abroad Advising and New Online Applications

January 11, 2012 by
Categories: Application Deadlines

Dear colleagues—it is that time of year when students (mostly sophomores) will be coming to their faculty advisors to discuss their study abroad plans, and to get advisor approval for these plans. I wanted to bring to your attention some changes we have made to the application process as a consequence of our going to an online application system.

Those of you who have done this before will remember that in the past we had 2 deadlines—one early in jterm for students to get their paper study abroad applications to their advisors, and one on February 1 for students to hand in completed applications to the International Programs office. This staggered deadline was made to encourage students to meet with advisors about their study abroad plans, which we still hope and expect to happen. However, instead of having the early jterm deadline for advisors and recommenders, there will be a single deadline of February 1 for all study abroad applications to be completed electronically.

I will be sending out a message to students shortly reminding them of this deadline and how the online application system works, and letting them know that they should be in touch with their faculty advisors about their plans if they have not already done so. For faculty, there are two forms for which you may receive an email, with a prompt to complete an online form: the faculty advisor approval form and the language assessment form. In both cases, if a student lists you as their advisor or their most recent language professor on their online form, you will receive an email from the International Programs mailbox. In this email will be a link to a webpage where you log in with your Middlebury username and password to complete the form. The email with the link to the major advisor approval will also indicate which courses the student proposes to take while abroad. You are also able to print out a paper form, which will be attached to the email, and deliver it to our office in Sunderland, though we hope most of you will use the online system.

For the major advisor approval form, we will be asking the same questions we have asked on our paper form, though in a somewhat different format. You will be asked to approve of the student’s tentative list of courses, indicate that the student will be able to complete the major on time, etc. There will also be a place for you to include additional comments, as is the case on the current paper form. The language assessment form will also be similar to the current form, and should be straightforward to fill out, as well.

If you have any questions, either about advising or about the new online system, please do not hesitate to contact me or any of our staff (x5745). For further information about student options and program information, the contact people in our office are:

Middlebury Schools Abroad (Brazil, Cameroon, Japan, Russia, and Spain): Nicole Chance

Middlebury Schools Abroad (China, Germany, and Italy): Meghan Mason

Middlebury Schools Abroad (Chile, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, and Mexico): Bill Mayers

Middlebury Schools Abroad (Argentina, France, and Uruguay): Susan Parsons

All external, non-Middlebury Programs (both study abroad and domestic): Stacey Thebodo

Study at the Monterey Institute: Charlotte Tate (x5795)

By involving faculty in the application process, we seek to assure the academic integrity of study abroad and other off-campus study. If you are new to this process, you may want to check with your department chair or program director regarding your department or program’s requirements for study abroad and how they intersect with major requirements.

Best,

Jeff

********

Jeffrey Cason
Dean of International Programs
Director, Rohatyn Center for International Affairs
Edward C. Knox Professor of International Studies and Political Science
Middlebury College
Middlebury, VT 05753

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Annual Faculty Salary Process

January 11, 2012 by
Categories: Application Deadlines

Dear colleagues,

It is time again to solicit information from you about your professional accomplishments from this past year, to inform the process of determining faculty salaries.  Please find a copy of the “Annual Information for Faculty Salaries” form attached to this email.  We request that you complete the form and send it electronically to the Office of the Provost by February 1.  Also be sure to send your form to your chair.  Before submitting your form, we ask that you name the document with your own name (e.g., Davis_James_Calvin_Annual Faculty Salary Form 2012).  Please keep in mind that you should report on accomplishments from the calendar year 2011 only.

As you are working on your form, we will be scheduling meetings with the Provost for each department chair (and directors of programs with designated faculty).  These meetings, which will take place in March, give chairs and directors a chance to discuss their colleagues’ accomplishments with Alison.  Chairs and directors should expect a separate email inviting them to sign up for such a meeting shortly.

Thanks for your work on the form and your dedication to the process.  Alison looks forward to hearing about the very good work our faculty has done this past year.

LastName_FirstName_Annual Faculty Salary Form 2012

Take care,
James
——————————————
James Calvin Davis
Assistant Provost & Associate Professor of Religion
Middlebury College
Old Chapel 203 / Munroe Hall 103
Middlebury, VT 05753

802.443.3221 / jcdavis@middlebury.edu

Author of In Defense of Civility (http://davis.wjkbooks.com)

 

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Reception for Visiting Winter Term Faculty on January 10

January 3, 2012 by
Categories: Winter Term

You are cordially invited to attend a reception in honor of the visiting winter term faculty for 2012, on Tuesday, January 10, from 4-6 p.m. at the Crossroads Café in McCullough.

We look forward to the opportunity to thank visitors for joining us this winter term and to introduce them to the College community!

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New Teaching Expectations — Curricular Planning

January 3, 2012 by
Categories: Curriculum, Teaching Resources

Dear Colleagues,

As you know, at last month’s faculty meeting, the Educational Affairs Committee presented their final version of proposed new guidelines on Teaching Expectations to the faculty and administration. Faculty Council offered a “sense of the faculty” vote to gauge faculty opinion of the new guidelines, which were endorsed by a comfortable majority. I am happy to report that the president has accepted the EAC’s Teaching Expectations guidelines.

One useful outcome of the process of developing these guidelines has been increased communication between the EAC and department chairs. EAC members met individually with chairs and directors to discuss the impact of the proposed guidelines on their department or program, and how the new system might best serve their curriculum. These discussions should, we hope, provide a useful model for how departments can use the guidelines to shape their curricular planning as we move towards implementation in 2012-13.

The goal of the new guidelines, as articulated by the EAC, is to create a structure that allows for the most transparent and strategic use of teaching resources. The increased flexibility they provide should encourage—and in fact, will require—more long-term thinking and planning with regard to teaching schedules and teaching loads within departments and programs. The new guidelines also create more space for curricular innovation, and we hope will make it easier to adopt promising proposals that emerge from the curricular task forces.

At a Chairs’ Meeting last week, we reviewed a proposed curricular planning process with department chairs and program directors. Recognizing that each department has its own structure and curricular needs, we emphasized each chair’s responsibility for overseeing a planning process that results in (1) consistent coverage of needed courses, (2) equitable distribution of teaching assignments, and (3) optimal use of staffing resources. By outlining a specific timetable for this planning, we stressed the need for collaboration among departments and programs to ensure that proposed teaching assignments serve not only department needs, but those of the college-wide curriculum, including interdisciplinary programs, the FYS  and College Writing Programs, and Winter Term. In particular, we asked that interdisciplinary programs submit requests for desired courses to participating colleagues and their department chairs in the earliest stages of the planning process, to increase the likelihood that such requests can be accommodated.

To assist in the planning process, we have created two forms that will replace the current Teaching Load forms. One form will be completed by individual faculty, following instructions from his or her chair/director; the second will compile those requests into a departmental worksheet. These forms are available at:

http://www.middlebury.edu/academics/administration/curr_inst/eac
(Note that they will be submitted as Word files this year, but will be Web-based in the future).

Chairs and directors will be in touch with their colleagues to outline a process for completing these forms.

Gathering information about proposed teaching assignments will allow the EAC and administration to review curricular plans in advance, rather than simply responding to information about courses that are already registered, or reacting to curricular decisions years later when a position request is submitted.

A more strategic use of teaching resources will allow us to attain many important curricular goals, including future implementation of senior work, as supported by the faculty’s vote at the November meeting. We in the administration are very grateful to the EAC for their hard work in creating the new guidelines, and we look forward to working with the EAC, with department chairs and program directors, and with faculty colleagues to achieve our shared goals for the Middlebury curriculum.

Best,

Alison

Alison Byerly
Professor of English
Provost and Executive Vice President
Middlebury College
Middlebury, Vermont 05753
802-443-5735
byerly@middlebury.edu

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Spring Student Symposium for 2012

January 3, 2012 by
Categories: Spring Term, Student Research

Dear Colleagues:

I am pleased to announce that the 2012 Spring Student Symposium will begin on the evening of Thursday, April 19, 2012, in the MCFA and continue with a full day of presentations on Friday, April 20, in MBH, Johnson, and MCFA. The Symposium showcases our students’ intellectual accomplishments across the disciplines, and includes student lectures, performances, posters, panels, art installations, and readings. More than 250 students from all four classes presented their work last year.

At this time I write to encourage you to participate in three ways:

1)      Classes are not held on Friday, April 20. Please refrain from scheduling any academic or co-curricular events on the evening of Thursday, the 19th, or during the day and evening of the 20th.

2)      Please keep an eye out for students doing interesting work, and encourage them to submit an application online beginning January 16. They need not be seniors; in recent years we have seen exciting presentations from juniors, sophomores, and first-years as well. Eligible work includes independent research, class projects, internships or community projects exploring a particular question or topic, creative work, and research conducted abroad.

3)      See go/sym for more information on how faculty and staff can become involved, including volunteering as a session facilitator or discussion moderator.

I thank you in advance for your support.

Sincerely,

Jim Ralph
Dean of the Faculty

For the Spring Student Symposium Planning Committee: Bob Cluss, Hang Du, Karen Guttentag, Pat Manley, Yonna McShane, Colleen Norden, Jim Ralph, Shel Sax, Shawna Shapiro, Kathy Skubikowski, Gregg Vitercik

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