Author Archives: johnsojg

Visitors to your classes?

College visitation season is upon us, and many prospective students desire to visit classes while they are on campus. The Office of Admission has asked us to provide a list of spring semester courses that prospective students can visit. If you are willing to allow visitors to any of your courses this semester, please add them directly to this Google Sheet. Please make sure that it is on the CAS tab (the one with AAA 201 as the example). Note that you are able to include comments, constraints, unavailable dates, etc. in addition to the course information.

Reminder: University teaching awards

The dean has asked me to remind you all of the call for nominations for the Distinguished Educator and Graduate Student Teaching Awards:

The Distinguished Educator Award will honor two faculty members for excellence in teaching and related professional activities and the Graduate Student Teaching Award will recognize superior teaching by graduate assistants and teaching fellows.

There must be at least three nominations in order to present this award to anyone.

For additional information, you may contact me or Nancy Burnside (9-1234). These nominations must be sent electronically to Nancy by March 1.

Please help to Make It Miami!

Once again, it will soon be time for the Make It Miami recruitment events for prospective students. Ted Peters in the dean’s office is asking for faculty volunteers from each department for academic exploration sessions to be held in Armstrong, 11:30 – 12:15, on several Mondays and Fridays through April. If you are willing and able to contribute, please enter your name directly on this spreadsheet as soon as possible.

Diversity events upcoming

As we approach the beginning of the semester, the Diversity & Inclusion will again bring to our attention upcoming events that may be of interest. Thanks again to Laurel Sarfan for compiling!

*Black Mental Health Night

When: February 6th, 2018 @ 7:00PM
Where: McGuffy Hall, 210 East Spring Street, Oxford, Ohio

“Join the Association of Black Psychologists for a mini-poster session with presentations and a speaker about issues relating to Black people in psychology.”

*Chinese New Year Festival

When: February 9th, 2018 @ 3:00PM to 10:00PM
Where: Marcum Conference Center, 951 E. Withrow Street, Oxford, OH, 45056

“All students and scholars are welcome to come and join with foods, traditional games, and celebrate Spring Festival (Chinese New Year Festival).”

*The New Golden Age of Latin Music ft. Orkesta Mendoza and Las Cafeteras

When: February 15th, 2018 @ 7:30PM to 9:30PM
Where: Hall Auditorium, 101 S. Campus Ave, Oxford, OH, 45056

“Top producer of global music, globalFEST, has paired two of today’s most exciting bands, forging inspired new paths for the fabled Latin sound.”

Quick thoughts on assessment

Some of you as instructors recently received emails requesting assistance in your courses this coming semester. Beth Dietz, in her role as assessment coordinator, created two excellent resources to quickly summarize the assessment efforts in the department.

A three-minute video explains things well and succinctly, and this document on the department Team Drive summarizes our department implementation. Thanks to Beth for creating these. I hope each of you might take a minute to understand this process and the value in supporting it as I do.

Finally, those on the CTE list occasionally receive Assessment Briefs that cover a wide range of topics, including the most recent entry describing the assessment of the Global Miami Plan.

Teaching/mentoring award for grad students

Miami may nominate up two graduate students for an award from the Midwestern Association of Graduate Schools (MAGS):

Two awards have been created to recognize the importance of excellence in teaching and mentoring as a component of graduate education and the preparation of graduate students for future service as college and university faculty. One award will be given to a doctoral student and one to a master’s student. Each award includes a citation and a $750 honorarium that will be presented at the MAGS 74rd Annual Meeting, April 4-6, 2018, at the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel, Grand Rapids, MI.

Nominating a masters and/or a doctoral candidate from your institution for one of these prestigious awards is an excellent way to recognize and encourage future faculty and support the Council of Graduate Schools’ (CGS) efforts to promote Preparing Future Faculty to meet needs in academia. Please consider submitting a nomination in each category as appropriate to recognize excellence in your graduate teaching assistants.

Please see me for more information if you are interested in nominating a student from our department to represent Miami. Submissions need to be received in the graduate school by January 19.

OARS winter and spring term workshops

OARS is sponsoring several workshops on using various systems at Miami for those that may not be familiar with them (click on the links from each date to register)

  • eSPA: Internal routing required for all external grant submissions (Jan 11; Feb 28)
  • HawksNest: Miami’s crowdfunding platform for research (Jan 23)
  • SPIN Plus: Funding opportunities database, search engine, and notifications (Feb 20)

See Heather Johnston in OARS or me for more information.