If you are considering bringing any alumni to campus this academic year, there may be support from CAS if they give a lecture (e.g. departmental colloquium). If you have someone in mind, please let me know so we can submit the required information to CAS by the deadline of September 21.
Category Archives: News
Call for Study Abroad/Away proposals
From Global Initiatives, faculty interested in developing Study Abroad/Away proposals for the 2019-20 AY should visit the website or see me for additional information. Note that proposals are due November 1.
Global Initiatives is pleased to invite proposals for study abroad/away programs for the 2019-20 Academic Year. Nearly 2,000 Miami University students study abroad or away on faculty-led programs each year on over 100 programs. These provide valuable high-impact global and intercultural experiences for students allowing them to meaningfully engage with the world and serve to enhance their on-campus coursework and activities. These initiatives support Miami University goals to promote a diverse culture of inclusion, integrity, and collaboration, and we appreciate your willingness to support these goals. Please share this email with your respective units.
Proposal Process Overview
Global Initiatives designed the study abroad/away program proposal process with the intent to develop and evaluate offerings across the university, as well as to increase student enrollment in Miami faculty led programs. As you know, there has been a proliferation of Miami University study abroad/away programs over the most recent three years. We are working with you to more critically review the proposals at the divisional and institutional levels to ensure that we are offering a wide array of globally focused academic endeavors in a variety of locations, not setting up competition for student enrollments between and among offerings, and being effective stewards of the university’s resources.
The proposal process also allows the creation of a study abroad/away portfolio that serves the university at large, while remaining responsive to the strategic goals of divisions and departments. We continue to refine the proposal process, and in order to do a thorough review, and have programs approved in a timeframe that allows students the opportunity to consider Miami faculty-led program options at the same time as transfer credit programs (non-Miami), which are typically available for student applications one year in advance.
Proposals for the 2019-20 Academic Year are due by November 1, 2018. In the recent past this has been a flexible deadline, but we have found that nearly 100% of late submissions are not able to generate enrollment for a go decision. Much effort goes into developing, reviewing, proposing, and recommending a program – faculty, Study Abroad and Global Initiatives staff, Deans, and Chairs, are all devoting a great deal of time to these late submissions, and then they do not meet their enrollment goals. This year, we will not review programs submitted after the deadline, and will ask faculty to consider proposing them for the next academic year, with the understanding that flexibility will be required for unique, high priority, significant offerings that may be considered with rationale.
Time again to #MoveInMiami
Once again, we are running two projects within the university’s broader #MoveInMiami campaign (see last year’s post) to be held on Thursday, August 23. It would be great if you could help to publicize our projects for the Graduate Student Travel Fund and the Behavioral Neuroscience fund using social media or other relevant means.
OER committee
Anybody who is interested in Open Educational Resources and willing to serve on the university committee, please let me know. Carolyn Haynes has requested volunteers and would love to target larger departments such as ours in particular.
Meet our new Alumni Advisory Board!
We are proud to announce that we have successfully constituted our inaugural Alumni Advisory Board. They can be found here as part of our new website. We welcome them and are quite excited about working with them. Please remember that Friday, September 7, we will be hosting our alumni as part of the Open House programming, including a careers panel and more. Thank you to Vaishali for her hard work in pulling this together!
Updates on NIH clinical trial policy
From FABBS:
Larry Tabak says that NIH has developed a plan to “address the shared interests of involved stakeholders” and that NIH was “prepared to move forward so that [they] can widely communicate the delayed enforcement and lenient implementation described in the plan.”
NIH’s plan to address the concerns about the reach of the clinical trials policies looks very promising, but of course, the devil is in the details, and many of those details are not yet known. Here’s what we know:
(1) NIH will delay enforcement of a registration and reporting system for basic science involving humans until July 1, 2019.
(2) NIH will allow scientists to register and report their basic science research involving humans through other portals such as Open Science. Eventually, NIH will pull data elements from these portals in order to track what they fund and comply with their own reporting requirements to Congress.
(3) A Request for Information (RFI) will be released soon so that NIH can get feedback on what reporting standards are appropriate for the range of basic science research involving humans. FABBS will respond, and we welcome input from our member societies and affiliates. Once the RFI is released, we will share it with you and seek your input.
(4) NIH will be “flexible” and “lenient” with regard to enforcement of other clinical trial policies for basic science. Although NIH’s plan is not specific, presumably this applies to the requirements that basic scientists whose research was defined as a clinical trial respond only to clinical trial FOAs and take good clinical practice training. NIH had previously told us that Review would not change for basic scientists responding to a clinical trial FOA. We would welcome feedback from our community about the last two review cycles, although NIH’s new plan may also alleviate the concerns.
(5) NIH will issue a Basic Science Parent FOA by October 30, 2018. We will interact with NIH over the coming months regarding this since it will be important to our sciences as the policies evolve.
What is still uncertain is how NIH will define basic science vs. a clinical trial. The plan itself references “basic science trials,” “public health trials,” and “prospective interventional human trials.” We will continue to interact with NIH to ensure that the definition of a clinical trial does not continue to capture basic science research involving humans.
For now, we consider NIH’s plan and engagement with us to be a very promising step. In addition, NIH’s plan (to be described in a NIH Guide Notice, which we will circulate to you) to be flexible and lenient in its implementation of the clinical trial policies as they relate to basic science studies should provide some reassurance to the basic science communities that FABBS represents.
Support for use of course packs
From Carolyn Haynes, a new opportunity (and funds!) for those using course packs in their courses fall semester:
In our continuing efforts to address affordability issues for our students, the Miami University Libraries and Office of the Provost are partnering to provide the Course Pack Consultation Service (CPCS). Many materials students pay for through readings-based course packs may be available at no charge to them through library online resources or copyright fair use.
Library staff will work with faculty to reduce or eliminate the costs associated with readings-based course packs (e.g. articles and book chapters) by utilizing links, permission requests and exceptions found in US copyright law. Faculty participating in the CPCS will be awarded $200 in professional development funds at the conclusion of the consultation. You can learn more about this initiative and complete the program application at the link above.
Congrats to the CLAAS of 2018!
Congratulations to all of the recent graduates, and particularly members of the first cohort of PSS majors on the regional campuses (CLAAS). Three of them are featured in this video highlighting regional students and their stories. Notably, all three of them have been accepted into graduate programs; we wish them the best of luck and continued success!
President’s Distinguished Service Award winners in PSY
The President’s Distinguished Service Award is one of the highest honors that students can receive. It is presented to “a select group of students, whose service through campus life, community service, intellectual and cultural leadership, or as a university employee, demonstrates the spirit of being a citizen leader of uncommon quality.”
This year, our department had two among only 17 recipients across the entire university! Congratulations to Annie Weidner and Brianne Safer for this prestigious honor.
Happy birthday to the newest member of the department!
I wanted to share with you all (with permission) that Madeline Virginia McMurray arrived early Wednesday morning (May 2). Congratulations to Matt and Kat on a beautiful, healthy baby girl!