Provost’s Award for Excellence in Practices Related to Instructional, Research, and Clinical (IRC) Faculty

Department of Psychology, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

• The award is given to an academic unit for excellence in practices regarding non-tenure-track faculty, or NTTF, which support the mission of the Denver campus. Criteria include a high level of meaningful involvement of NTTF within the unit; and demonstrated excellence in the level of impact or contribution the NTTF involvement has on fulfilling the mission of the unit.
• The department has been a leader in raising the status of NTTF. For example, the tenured and tenure-track faculty recently voted to bestow full voting rights (except where prohibited by Regental law) for NTTF with .5 or higher appointments.
• The department has also expanded the role of NTTF in many ways. Several NTTF have played critically-important roles in graduate education – e.g., by directing the Clinical Psychology program and participating in the development of the proposal for the Clinical Health Psychology Ph.D. program. They have been active in outcomes assessment, graduate thesis committees, clinical supervision, mentoring and advising students, teaching at all levels, college- and campus-level committees, and building interdisciplinary programs that span the Denver and Anschutz campuses. The faculty members are integrated into all aspects of the department’s role and mission.
• One of the NTTF wrote: At a time when universities across the nation are struggling to understand how to define and integrate non-tenure-track faculty into their institutions and missions, the department of psychology at UC Denver is far ahead of the curve. [Department Chair] Dr. Kaplan’s support of non-tenure track faculty has contributed to our professional development, but perhaps even more importantly, his support of non-tenure-track faculty has allowed us to strengthen our department overall in terms of our teaching and mentoring missions.
• The selection committee was very impressed with the clear vision expressed by the Psychology Department for their future—with the NTTF playing major, important roles. The chair and faculty have shown great leadership in identifying ways to incorporate NTTF into the “life” of the department, and they offer a great model for other academic units at UC Denver.
• Receiving the award on behalf of the department: Chair Peter Kaplan and faculty members Allison Bashe, Joan Bihun, and Kevin Everhart.

The Business School

• A committee comprised of NTTF representatives from each school and college, as well as a UCDALI representative and a Faculty Assembly representative, selected the winner.
• From among several strong nominations, the selection committee chose the Business School as the recipient of this year’s award.
• The Business School recognizes and utilizes NTTF through voting rights, annual evaluations, and administrative positions. 
• The practice of entrusting academic administrative positions to NTTF is exemplified by Dr. Errol Biggs, who directs the school’s Health Administration Program.  The Master of Business Health Administration program has been named by U.S. News and World Report as one of the top 25 graduate programs in health services administration.  It was invited to join the prestigious Business School Alliance for Health Care Management this year – along with business schools from Duke, Harvard, Yale, Northwester and other top-tier universities.  It is also a charter member of the National Healthcare Alliance along with some of the same universities; this alliance is dedicated to raising and improving the quality of health care management education nationally.
• Other NTTF in the Business School have played integral and very important roles in developing and leading programs.  These include: 
• John Turner (former NTTF), Executive Director, Global Energy Management Program, and Missy Kautt, chair of the program’s advisory council;
• Wendy Guild, Director, Sports and Entertainment Marketing;
• Nicole Vowles and John Byrd, instructors and leaders in the Sustainability Program;
• Chen Ji, instructor and associate with the Institute for International Business (part of the CIBER grant);
• Ira Selkowitz, responsible for overseeing the business law classes;
• David Ruderman, working with Graduate Career Connections to create connections for students with business professionals; and
• Eric Reiner, working with the Risk Management and Insurance Program.
• The selection committee was very impressed with the ways in which the NTTF contribute to fulfilling the mission of the Business School to educate and empower graduates to succeed in the global economy; to create and disseminate knowledge relevant to academics and the community; and, in partnership with businesses, to help drive economic vitality.  They clearly are of critical importance to the school and are valued by their colleagues.
• Receiving the award on behalf of the Business School are some of the NTTF faculty and leaders mentioned earlier:  Errol Biggs, Mike Harper, John Turner, Wendy Guild, Ji Chen, and Ira Selkowitz.

No Nominees

No Nominees

No Nominees

Auraria Library

• The Library has a long and rich history of providing support for its non-tenure-track faculty members. They are fully enfranchised participants in faculty governance and decision-making, working with the tenured/tenure-track faculty and staff members on matters related to the Library’s structure, direction, and resource allocation. They serve on the various committees and work groups within the Library, and represent the Library on many campus committees and task forces.
• Support within the Library for non-tenure-track faculty members includes professional development opportunities via funding for conference travel and attendance, and participation in online webinars and other learning opportunities. 
• The selection committee for this award applauded the Library for its long-standing practices that support non-tenure track faculty and the campus-wide impact of these practices. Further, they hope that this “integrated vision” for non-tenure-track faculty will serve as a great model for other academic units on campus. 

No Nominees

Department of Psychology, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

1. What are the best practices that are the bases of your proposal?

• NTTF in Psychology above .50 FTE appointments have full voting rights (except where prohibited by Regents)
• NTTF are included in all departmental agenda and goals, and fully participate in all departmental committees and processes
• NTTF faculty have been encouraged to take on leadership roles in improving and refining our instructional mission, especially in the area of curriculum development and best practices in teaching
• NTTF have been encouraged to serve as mentors for individual students at both the undergraduate and graduate levels and have served on undergraduate honors, M.A. thesis, and doctoral dissertation committees
• NTTF are regularly provided with departmental travel funds to attend professional meetings such as the National Institute on the Teaching of Psychology (NITOP; Association for Psychological Science or APS), and the meeting of the Society for the Teaching of Psychology; STP; American Psychological Association or APA). They have returned from those meetings with new ideas for course composition and evaluation, major curriculum, and student research
• Senior instructors have been encouraged and supported to move into Clinical Teaching Track (CTT) appointments, which (a) enables them to devote 10% effort to research and scholarly activity, and (b) provides a career path through the ranks of the CT track from assistant through associate and full professor 

2. How many NTTF in your unit have been engaged in your best practices?

In 2010 we had 3 NTTF (Bashe, Bihun, Everhart), including 2 senior instructors and 1 clinical teaching track (CTT) assistant professor. In 2017, we have 6 NTTF, including 4 clinical teaching track (1 full professor [Walker], 1 associate professor [Everhart], and 2 assistant professors [Bihun; Shyu]), 1 senior instructor (Bierer), and 1 assistant research professor (Hamilton). All have engaged in just about aspect of our best practices (although Senior Instructors do not have research expectations). Below, we identify which NTTF have been most closely associated with each activity or accomplishment.

3. How have these practices engaged NTTF in the mission of the unit, school, or university?

Providing NTTF with full rights and expanded responsibilities have enabled them to become engaged in every facet of the department’s mission, from undergraduate education and student mentoring to graduate education, training, and clinical supervision, to governance at the department, college, campus, and system levels, and research and scholarship. Below we detail how our practices have engaged NTTF faculty in our teaching, leadership/service, and research/scholarship missions.

Teaching

• our NTTF play an absolutely critical role in undergraduate and graduate education, generating a high proportion of the department’s SCHs at the undergraduate level, advising and mentoring our students, making important contributions to curricular improvements, and adding significantly to our scholarship of education. At the graduate level, they play a very important role both in the classroom and in the Psychology Clinic, where they train graduate students to do clinical work and prepare them as they apply for matches in the national competition to secure APA-approved clinical internships. Specifically, NTTF faculty have been empowered and encouraged to develop new courses to add to our curriculum, including;
  • PSYC 2205: Lifespan Developmental Psychology for Health Majors (Bihun) – in response to changes in requirements for pre-nursing and pre-PT degrees, and changing MCAT test composition
  • PSYC 3385: Psychology of Mindfulness – a course on the scientific basis for the mindfulness concept and its evidence-based applications (Bierer)
  • PSYC  3600: Senior Seminar – a pilot of a new capstone course preparing seniors who plan to enter the job market for the transition from university to the workforce (Shyu)
  • PSYC 3615: Positive Psychology (Bierer) – a vibrant but relatively new area of psychology that was previously absent from our curriculum
  • PSYC 4680: Behavioral Science Research (Hamilton) – updated course significantly for MARC-USTAR scholars program and departmental honors programs
  • PSYC 4780: Behavioral Science Research Ethics & Issues Science Research (Hamilton) – updated course for MARC-USTAR scholars and departmental honors programs
  • NTTF did most of the work in developing and implementing over a short 2-year period a complete online B.A. degree major in Psychology (Bihun; Bierer; Everhart; Hamilton; Shyu). This includes 20 new course preparations. Without NTTF, the online B.A. major in Psychology would not exist.
• have led the department’s effort at expanding the use of High Impact Practices (HIPs) in teaching through their NTTF participation in the annual Undergraduate Experiences Symposia, and their efforts to apply what they learned through our department’s Undergraduate Curriculum Committee.
• have established our monthly departmental Brown Bag meetings (Bierer; Shyu), which have focused on defining best practices in teaching. The topics that have been discussed at these brown bags have included best practices in online education, making maximum usage of CANVAS, improving departmental outcomes assessments, expanding HIPs, and implementing peer classroom visits for peer mentoring of teaching
• have played a crucial role in providing much of the clinical training for our doctoral students. NTTF faculty have been involved with clinical supervision of doctoral trainees (Bierer; Everhart), have served as our Coordinator of Clinical Training (Everhart; Walker), and have directed our Psychology Clinic (Everhart; Walker). They have significantly enhanced the quality of clinical supervision by transitioning the Psychology Clinic to an electronic health record system and a state-of-the-art audiovisual recording system that allows supervisors and students to watch live and recorded assessment and therapy sessions
• were key developers of our Psychological Clinic, and two of them have served as clinic directors (Everhart; Walker). Dr. Barbara Walker, our current Coordinator of Clinical Training and PC Director, has been instrumental in continuing the development of our portfolio of external clinical practica, which now include an astounding array of student placement options, such as Aurora Mental Health Center, A.F. Williams Family Medicine, Children’s Hospital of Denver, Denver Health, the Denver VA Medical Center (Traumatic Brain Injury/Rehab Team; General Neuropsychology; In-patient Rotations), Mental Health Center of Denver, Mental Health Partners in Boulder, National Jewish Health, Neurosurgery at the University of Colorado Hospital, Presbyterian St. Luke’s Bone Marrow Transplant Unit, Spalding Rehabilitation, Salud Family Health Centers, St. Joseph’s Hospital, and the University of Colorado Hospital. 

Leadership and Service

Our NTTF faculty have at least a 10% effort involvement in leadership/service. They have served in critical system-, campus-, college-, and department level governance committees, and have been active in the community and in professional organizations

• At the CU System level
  • the system-wide FCQ Pilot Committee (Bihun)
  • presenter at Women’s Symposium at CU Colorado Springs (Bierer) 
• At the campus level
  • UCDALI Executive Committee Member and President (Shyu)
  • Faculty Assembly CLAS representative (Shyu)
  • UCDALI Bridge Network Liaison (Bihun)
  • Consolidated Campus Staff Council (Bierer)
  • Commencement Ceremony Marshall (Shyu)
  • Undergraduate Experiences Symposium Table leader (Shyu)
• At the CLAS level
  • CLAS Clinical Teaching Track committee (Shyu)
  • CLAS Outcome Assessment Committee (Bihun, chaired behavioral science core)
  • CLAS Faculty Mentor Program (Bihun)
• At the Department level
  • CU Succeed Program liaisons for Psychology (Bihun; Hamilton)
  • Psychology Department Undergraduate Scholarship Selection committees (Bihun;
  • Faculty co-advisor for Psi Chi, the National Honor Society in Psychology (Bihun; Hamilton)
  • Psychology Department Curriculum Committee (Bierer; Hamilton)
  • Psychology Department Merit Policy Committee (Bierer; Shyu)
  • Psychology Department Space Committee (Bihun)
  • Organizer, Departmental Brown Bag Series (Bierer; Shyu)
  • CHP Steering Committee (Everhart; Walker)
  • CHP Doctoral Student Admissions Committee (Everhart)
  • Clinical Core Competency Exams (Everhart)
  • Clinical Supervisor in CHP program (Bierer, Everhart, Walker)
• At the Professional level
  • American Psychological Association’s Society for the Teaching of Psychology (STP) Adjunct Faculty Excellence Award Committee Chair (Bihun), STP Teaching of Psychology Skills Matter Task Force (Shyu)
  • AP Psych Reader/Table Leader (Bihun)
  • Associate Editor of the journal Translational Behavioral Medicine: Practice, Policy, and Research (Walker)
• At the Community level
  • volunteer neuroscience outreach at local-area school (Hamilton)
  • volunteer for Adam’s Camp for developmentally disabled children (Everhart)

Research and Scholarship

Five out of six of our NTTF have at least a 10% involvement in research and scholarly activity. This involvement ranges from laboratory basic research (Everhart; Hamilton) to applied or clinical research (Everhart; Walker) to the scholarship of pedagogy and education (Bierer; Bihun; Shyu). By way of brief summaries:

• Bethann Bierer, Senior Instructor, is a licensed clinical psychologist who has no formal research responsibilities. Even so, she has brought expertise in positive psychology and the psychology of mindfulness to our faculty and students, and has been active in the scholarship of pedagogy. She presented a paper on the psychology of mindfulness as a college course at the meeting of the Mindfulness in Education conference in 2015.
   
• Joan Bihun, Assistant Professor CTT (awaiting word on promotion to Associate Professor, CTT) is an expert in developmental psychology, and is currently also active in the scholarship of pedagogy. She has published a peer-reviewed paper about students’ perceptions of their department’s learning objectives for the major in the Psi Chi Journal of Psychological Research. She received a Center for Faculty Development grant to study how students perceive and use feedback on their written work, and has presented conference papers at the National Institute for the Teaching of Psychology and the Rocky Mountain Psychological Association on this and other topics. She has also received grants from UCDALI and the CLAS Dissemination program.
   
• Kevin Everhart, Associate Professor CTT, is an expert in child clinical psychology and co-Director of the Infant Learning Laboratory in the Department of Psychology, where he supervises and mentors four doctoral students and numerous undergraduates. He has been co-author on two peer-reviewed papers in the journal Infant Behavior & Development, has co-authored conference presentations at the International Society for Infancy Studies, the Society for Research in Human Development, the Society of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, and the Society for Neuroscience. He was co-investigator on a completed R01 grant from NICHD and a co-PI on a small grant from our Office of Research Services.
   
• Lindsey Hamilton, Research Assistant Professor with expertise in behavioral neuroscience, is also MARC/USTAR and Psychology Honors Program coordinator. She will be co-PI on the application for renewal of that program grant, which proposes a significant expansion of the program. She recently published a paper in the journal Neurochemical Research, and has two other articles in preparation. She supervised six student presentations at the meeting of the Society for Advancement of Chicano/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) in 2016.
   
• Vivian Shyu, Assistant Professor CTT, has been active in the scholarship of pedagogy. She received a professional development grant from the Center for Faculty Development to perform a comparison of student perceptions and learning outcomes of in-class, online, and hybrid formats in PSYC 2220: Biological Bases of Behavior, and subsequently a grant from CU Online to attend a Society for Teaching and Learning workshop to prepare a manuscript based on her findings. She received a grant from the CLAS ACT program to improve collaborative assignments and projects in our required research methods class (PSYC 3090), and a CLAS dissemination grant to present the results at a professional conference. She was awarded a grant from the campus-wide Professional Learning Community program on HIPs to pilot a new capstone course for B.A. in Psychology majors. She was a co-PI on a funded grant from the National Science Foundation on “engaged student learning” for STEM education ($249,967 in direct costs), and that group has submitted a request for a renewal. She co-authored a paper in the journal Scholarship of teaching and Learning in Psychology.
   
• Barbara Walker, Professor CTT, obtained a grant from the CLAS SITFAC Fund to purchase psychophysiology equipment to enable doctoral student trainees to learn the practice of biofeedback for treating patients or carrying out research. She has been a tireless advocate for “evidence-based practice” in clinical health psychology research, and has developed a training module on this. In addition, she has presented a paper on medical marijuana at the meeting of the Association of Psychology Training Clinic Directors, and a workshop for online support groups and treatment of Borderline Personality Disorders at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association. She published a peer-reviewed paper with two doctoral students in the journal Family Systems and Health in 2015.

4. How have these practices contributed to NTTF development?

Relative to the “teaching-only” role ascribed to NTTF in the past, changes to departmental and college policies have enabled NTTF to develop their careers in research and scholarly activity, curriculum development, faculty governance at all levels, mentoring of students, and service to the profession. They have attended national meetings and been officers in national professional organizations. Several have joined the ranks of the CTT and have been recommended for advancement within that track’s ranks in recognition of their experience and career developments. Dr. Shyu’s letter of support is informative in this regard. NTTF in our department have won campus and national awards

• Awards
  • National Teaching Award, APA Division 2, 2013 (Bihun)
  • Award for Outstanding Service, UCD Faculty Assembly, 2015 (Shyu)
  • Award for Outstanding Service, UCD Faculty Assembly, 2016 (Bihun)
  • Campus and CLAS Excellence in Teaching Awards, 2012 (Bihun)

5. How have these practices benefitted the unit, school, or university?

Generally speaking, expanding our NTTF and empowering them to participate in all facets of the department’s mission has returned enormous dividends to the department, as detailed above and summarized in the bullet points below. They have become the department’s experts on teaching and the scholarship of pedagogy. At the college and campus levels, they have become leaders of NTTF on committees, in UCDALI, and on Faculty Assembly. They have represented our institution admirably at national meetings. Importantly, we believe that our practices with regard to NTTF have contributed to their staying with us, which creates a stability that is important for students as well as the department (Bihun = 18 years; Everhart = 13 years; Shyu = 7 years; Walker = 6 years; Bierer = 4 years; Hamilton = 2 years).

• Redesign of departmental undergraduate Honors program
• Significant revisions of undergraduate curriculum
• Development and implementation of our fully online B.A. major in Psychology
• Development and leadership of CHP Ph.D. program and the Psychology Clinic
• Outcomes assessment upgrades
• Peer mentoring in teaching program
• Mentoring and advising students
• Community outreach through CU Succeed, high school neuroscience education programs, and low-cost services for community members as well as students in our Psychological Clinic

No Nominees

Faculty Research Center, School of Education & Human Development

• This year’s recipient, the School of Education and Human Development Faculty Research Center, aids faculty with all research needs. The center prides itself in working with all faculty regardless of tenure status, knowledge, background, or need.
• The Center provides workshops designed to increase faculty knowledge on research methodologies, analyses, productivity, etc., which include faculty spotlight symposia every semester. In 2018-19, both semesters included NTTF in these symposia.
• The center also provides individual research support throughout the research process: From Idea to Project to Publication. It offers: literature and article searches, grant searches, help with grant proposals, methodology consultation, advice on the COMIRB process, data collection support, transcription, data analysis support, help in choosing an analysis method, software support, and article supports.
• 58.6% of SEHD’s 29 non-tenure-track faculty have used the center’s resources at least once in the last two years.  Having the center intentionally focus on them as well as tenure-track faculty has benefited everyone involved.  New collaborations have started among non-tenure-track faculty with each other, and with tenured and tenure-track faculty and graduate students.
• Although the usual expectation for research is 5-10% of their appointment, clinical faculty still feel the pressure of fulfilling their research agenda. 
• In their letters of support, clinical faculty described how important the Faculty Research Center has been to their success.  Lisa Forbes wrote, “Each time I leave… I not only feel supported but I feel a surge of motivation and clarity.”  Rachel Stein added, “the mentorship I have received from the Faculty Research Center has provided me with essential support to continue to grow my own research skills and, in turn, mentor students’ research activities.”
• The center is directed by Clinical Assistant Professor Courtney Donovan, a non-tenure-track faculty member herself.  Dean Rebecca Kantor says Dr. Donovan, with the support of her supervisor, Associate Dean Dorothy Garrison-Wade, created “a new, fresh and fantastic vision for the center” when she became its director.  “Courtney applied her considerable research talent and skills to create a stronger research culture for the School.”
• Dr. Donovan believes that SEHD has brilliant NTTF faculty with exceptional research questions. The center provides a place for them to gain the support, guidance, and encouragement to work on these questions.

To accept the award for Excellence in Practices Related to Non-Tenure-Track Faculty, we have Dean Rebecca Kantor, Associate Dean Dorothy Garrison-Wade, and Faculty Research Center Director Courtney Donovan.

School of Public Affairs

• The School of Public Affairs is receiving this award for its professional development support for lecturers. Its more than 40 lecturers in a given academic year deliver a high percentage of SPA classes and touch a high percentage of SPA students.
• In 2015 SPA created the position of Lecturer Coordinator. Our winner of the award for Excellence in Faculty Mentoring, Dr. Jane Hansberry, serves in this role.
• SPA offers stipends for lecturers to attend teaching workshops and CU Online’s Online Skills Mastery class, as well as other professional development opportunities.
• Lecturers have access to the SPA Teaching Resources Canvas site, which provides general teaching resources and materials on specific topics such as assessing student learning, teaching diverse students, experimental learning, teaching ethics using case studies, and improving student writing.
• SPA Lecturer Kim Hedberg wrote, “I know that my teaching has benefited greatly from these opportunities and I’ve experienced first-hand the impact professional development training has had on me, and by extension, on my students… SPA’s investment in lecturers speaks to its commitment to the importance of lecturers. We are supported in our desire to improve our teaching and classroom management skills.”

Congratulations to the School of Public Affairs, Dr. Jane Hansberry, and Dean Paul Teske for winning this award for Excellence in Practices Related to Instructional, Research, and Clinical Faculty.

Department of Psychology, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

• The Department of Psychology was nominated by two instructors, Ms. Christina Collins and Dr. Paula Schmidtlein.
• Their nomination is based on inclusiveness, mentorship, and innovation.
• The department has been inclusive in its recent appointment of these two long-time adjunct faculty to rostered, full-time faculty positions. The nominators appreciate that the department looked within its lecturer rank to offer this opportunity.
• The department is inclusive in contributing to professional development at all ranks. IRC faculty are encouraged to take advantage of the many trainings available for continued teaching effectiveness, through the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, the Center for Faculty Development and Advancement, and UCDALI.
• The department has invited IRC faculty to participate in department meetings and on working teams, such as the Introduction to Psychology Redesign team.
• Instructor Christina Collins wrote, “The experiences and opportunities afforded me by the Psychology Department were opportunities I had not had available in my adjunct career previously.  The interest and facilitation the department took in my continued education has been invaluable and supportive.  My skills as an instructor have significantly grown. The department has always held an open-door policy for any questions or concerns I have had regarding challenging situations and interpersonal dynamics that can arise in the classroom environment. It has made me feel like a valued member of their team.”
• Instructor Paula Schmidtlein wrote in her nomination, “I think having been in academia for a period of time one may forget that there is a steep learning curve, shifting from being a student to a professor.  For myself, that learning curve was made easier by the mentorship of many individuals in the Psychology Department. As new opportunities arose, I was invited to participate, allowing me to continue to grow as an educator…. I have always felt supported and valued.”

Congratulations to the Department of Psychology for winning the Provost’s Award for Excellence in Practices Related to Instructional, Research, and Clinical Faculty.  Accepting is Department Chair Peter Kaplan, and joining him are nominators Christina Collins and Paula Schmidtlein.

The Business School

• A committee of the University of Colorado Denver Association of Lecturers and Instructors selects an academic unit for this award. The award recognizes and supports a specific area of best practice with regard to any level of instructional, research, and clinical faculty, including lecturers, instructors, senior instructors, and research and clinical teaching track faculty.
• The Business School was nominated by its Associate Dean of Faculty, Staff, and Operations, Dr. Jahan Karimi.
• In 2020 the Business School created the position of Lecturer Liaison to serve as a multi-level resource for incoming and existing lecturers and to give its 60 active lecturers a broader sense of belonging and community within the Business School.
• The Lecturer Liaison is one of the recipients of the 2022 Excellence in Teaching award, Jim LoPresti.
• Among his accomplishments are a Teams site for sharing information, an online Lecturer Guidebook, monthly Town Hall meetings, and a new Business School Award for Teaching Excellence by a Lecturer. Beginning in Fall 2022, this award will be presented each year.
• A new lecturer wrote: “I am immensely grateful for the school providing this service to navigate onboarding but, more importantly, providing the best experience for our students…Having someone I consider a peer to be my ‘buddy’ has reduced my anxiety and increased my feelings of preparedness to start teaching for the Business School.”

Congratulations to the Business School for winning the Provost’s Award for Excellence in Practices Related to Instructional, Research, and Clinical Faculty.  Accepting are Associate Dean Jahan Karimi and Lecturer Liaison Jim LoPresti.

ThinqStudio

• A cross-campus committee of IRC and tenure-track faculty representing four schools/colleges, UCDALI, Faculty Assembly and the previous year’s recipient selects the winner of this award. After reviewing the nominees’ materials, the committee was convinced that ThinqStudio was not so much engaged in a single best practice, but that ThinqStudio is the best practice. 
• The committee was impressed with ThinqStudio’s ethos of integration: The application materials demonstrated that consideration of IRC faculty as valued members of the community is embedded in all facets of ThinqStudio.
• Specific enactments of this practice such as removing faculty titles from website bios and ensuring IRC faculty are able to take full advantage of opportunities including conference travel and course releases for pedagogical development stood out to the committee, as did the overall approach of ensuring IRC faculty feel as “one of” the group and in no way “lesser than” (to quote one member of the committee).  
• We commend ThinqStudio’s awareness of and commitment to the critical role IRC faculty play in driving pedagogical innovation on campus and applaud its efforts to create community and inclusivity by preemptively addressing factors known to contribute to the marginalization of IRC faculty. We believe this approach stands as a worthy model for other units across campus to follow.

Congratulations to the ThinqStudio for winning this award for Excellence in Practices Related to Instructional, Research, and Clinical Faculty. 

Starting in 2023, award recipients were also asked to detail how they planned to utilize the $2,500 stipend. 

• ThinqStudio’s response was innovative and purposeful. They proposed using the funds to document and highlight their role in CU Dener’s pedagogical advancements. The goal was to capture the essence of ThinqStudio’s work and the impact it has had, particularly through the lens of Instructors, Lecturers, and Clinical (IRC) Faculty who had served as Faculty Fellows.
• To bring this vision to life, several projects were planned, with a dedicated focus on the IRC Faculty. These former Faculty Fellows were invited to participate by either being interviewed or writing a blog post about their experiences and the lasting impacts of their work. In recognition of their time and expertise, it was decided that they would receive $100 for an interview or $250 for contributing a blog post.
• To support this endeavor, ThinqStudio engaged with student journalists from CU Denver’s student newspaper, The Sentry. These students, eager to delve into the stories of the Faculty Fellows, estimated that each interview and article would require 4-6 hours of work. Understanding the value of their contributions, ThinqStudio agreed to compensate them at $25 per hour.
• As the project unfolded, it became clear that a significant portion of the Provost’s Award funds would be dedicated to this documentation process. The goal was not just to record these stories but to ensure they were shared widely, with the potential for future publication in national journals like Inside Higher Ed, The Chronicle, or Frontiers in Education.
• In addition to the documentation efforts, ThinqStudio recognized the ongoing contributions of six key faculty members—Cameron Blevins, Vivian Shyu, Julia Kantor, Lori Elliott, Andrea Lasar, and Robin Brandehoff. Each of these individuals was awarded $400 towards their professional development accounts, a gesture that acknowledged their commitment and role in advancing ThinqStudio’s mission.

Department of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

The committee rated the department’s application very highly with respect to the number of IRC faculty engaged, engagement of IRC faculty with the department’s mission, contribution to IRC faculty development and benefit to the department overall. In particular, the committee recognizes and wishes to commend the following:

• Comprehensiveness of approach and understanding that sometimes multiple things can and should be done at once (such as honoring teaching excellence by a Lecturer AND including Lecturers on the departmental website and photo board)
• Engagement of the entire unit, across all IRC faculty titles (CTT/Teaching Professors, Instructors, Research Associates, Lecturers)
• Investment and success in building community and ensuring faculty feel welcome and supported, regardless of title
• Advocacy on behalf of IRC faculty by departmental leaders, in what seems a step beyond listening to IRC faculty advocate for themselves

The impacts of the actions outlined in the application are well attested in the supporting letters from IRC faculty in the department, which the committee noted also represented a full range of IRC faculty titles. What came across in these letters is that the multi-pronged efforts of the Mathematical and Statistical Sciences department are fostering IRC faculty confidence in all areas — teaching, research, and leadership and service — to the benefit of IRC faculty, MSS students and the department as a whole. The committee believes these are practices well worth celebrating and sharing with the campus community. We also feel that the plan to use the award money to support a peer-mentoring program is a well-placed use of these funds that will further benefit IRC faculty and the department (although we also want to clarify that proposed use of funds did not factor in the formal evaluation of proposals, as the other applications were carried over from last year when a statement regarding use of funds was not requested in the application materials).

Congratulations to the Department of Mathematics and Statistical Sciences for all of the ways you are engaging, advocating for and building up your IRC faculty!

Stipend Information: 

The award stipend will be redirected to fund a pilot peer-mentoring program for part-time lecturer, where a senior lecturer would mentor a more junior lecturer. This would be a voluntary remunerated professional development opportunity offered to lecturers. The fund would be used to compensate the lecturers for their time. The program will have peer-mentoring, general sessions to go over inclusive pedagogy and social events. The program would replicate at the lecturer level our existing graduate TA training program. See for example “Promoting Success in Undergraduate Mathematics through Graduate Teaching Assistant Training” by Mathematical Association of America.

This program is a flagship program at CU Denver that many other math departments are studying and trying to replicate. This TA training program is currently sponsored by the NSF. The idea is to capitalize on our experience with TA training to expand to professional development for lecturers. The money would be used to support financially the lecturers for their time in participating in the program. We would assess the impact of the program and communicate our results.