Welcoming & Celebrating Faculty

Oct 22, 2019

Welcoming new faculty to DU is a moment of celebration. After expending time, energy, and funds to attract and recruit individuals to their new academic home, we need to consider ways of helping them in their transitions and acclimation to campus.

In welcoming new faculty to the DU community, Keith Ward, director of DU’s Lamont School of Music, suggests a proactive approached based on what faculty know to be effective: onboarding as an unfolding syllabus or “course of study”. He writes, “By organizing and apportioning the myriad of things to learn, we help new faculty to start well. To help our new colleagues in the transition and acclimation to DU we need to be holistic and purposeful in our efforts to mentor, assist, and support them.

Things to consider when onboarding:

  • Compile a list of things new faculty in your department or program should learn, administrative offices they need to know, knowledge of governance structures within and beyond their units, etc.
  • Prioritize this knowledge and spread out the necessary steps to achieve this knowledge over the course of a year (or shorter time determined by unit).
  • Develop check-ins along the way.

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