DU Symposium 2024
About DU Symposium 2024
DU Summer Symposium 2019, the first symposium of its kind at DU, brought faculty from across disciplines and ranks together for two days to discuss big ideas, possibilities, and opportunities for faculty affairs programming. Building on that model, we’re hosting a day and half long symposium focused on pressing issues for DU’s faculty. Symposium ‘24 will be held on campus Thursday and Friday, August 8th and 9th. All full and part-time appointed faculty are invited.
Opportunities to participate include:
- Learning opportunities aimed at providing participants an overview of current and past faculty affairs programming and data on the faculty experience including faculty recommendations from COACHE engagement programming.
- Working groups focused on important areas of the faculty experience including mentoring, leadership development, midcareer support, and more. Participating faculty will be invited to join the working groups of most interest to them.
- Opportunities for feedback across each of the working group areas.
- Professional development to build faculty leadership skills.
- Time to connect with colleagues over good food and great ideas.
DU Symposium ’24: Faculty Success and Well-Being Agenda
Location: Burwell Center for Career Advancement, Room 340
DAY 1: Thursday, August 8th
9:00-9:30am: Registration and Breakfast
Join us for a full breakfast and conversation with colleagues to start the day.
9:30-10:30am: Symposium Overview and Context
In this session we’ll confirm the purpose of the Symposium, drawing on COACHE data and COACHE faculty engagements as well as past and current Faculty Affairs programming. We’ll talk through the flow of the day and the structure of the working groups to set the context for our work together.
10:30-12:00pm: Session 1: Reflections on Existing Programming
Working Groups gather and discuss reflections on the pre-reading materials, opening session of the Symposium, and talk through innovative ideas for Faculty Affairs programming or other efforts. What might be retained, modified, or introduced?
12:00-1:00pm: Lunch Break
Join us for a walk to the Food Truck featuring street tacos on us!
1:00-2:00pm: Self-care: Chocolate Meditation featuring Claude d’Estree
Close your eyes, inhale cocoa dreams, and exhale stress. Claude’s got this. Savor Dieters chocolates during this rejuvenating session.
2:00-3:30pm: Session 2: Brainstorming and Reflection
Working Groups gather to review ideas generated in the first working group session and reflect on attention to diversity, equity, and inclusion; faculty ranks and series; priorities; and feasibility.
3:30-5:00pm: Working Group Report Out on Initial Ideas and Feedback
Working Groups provide an overview of their discussions and themes with an opportunity for the full group to provide feedback.
5:00-5:30pm: Social Time: Mocktails and Charcuterie featuring The Wellness Program
Rest and Restore Goodie Bags choose your own treats. We look forward to seeing you tomorrow!
DAY 2: Friday, August 9th
9:00-9:30am: Sign-In and Breakfast
Start the day with a hearty breakfast and continued conversation with colleagues.
9:30-11:00am: Session 3: Refinement of Top Ideas
Working Groups reconvene to identify top three ideas based on discussions and feedback, outline ideas about next steps for implementation and needed resources.
11:00-12:00pm: Restore and Breathe with Tai Chi featuring DU’s own Linzy Coffey
Join us for a rejuvenating session of Tai Chi, a gentle and low-impact exercise. Linzy Coffey will guide you through deliberate, flowing motions while emphasizing deep, slow breaths. Let’s restore our energy together!
12:00-1:00pm: Lunch Break
Enjoy a full lunch served during this time. Recharge and refuel for the afternoon ahead.
1:00-2:30pm: Final Group Share Out/Feedback/Next Steps/Thank You
The Symposium wraps up with a group share-out, where participants can provide feedback and discuss next steps.
Thank you for joining us!
Working Group Descriptions
Working Group 1: Mid-Career Mentoring and Supports
Many faculty supports that are aimed at early career faculty, or faculty newly joining DU. However, the mid-career stage presents unique challenges and opportunities. Navigating administrative and leadership pathways, shifting teaching or scholarly pursuits after promotion to associate, promoting thriving and warding off burnout, and pursuing promotion to full (and more!) are all themes that might be particularly salient for the midcareer stage.
Working Group 2: Data to Continuously Improve the Faculty Experience
While the COACHE data provide important insights into the faculty experience, it is difficult to use these data for continuous tracking and improvements. Collecting data related to key priorities can help document progress toward goals as well as course corrections. While it’s useful to have more continuous data, this must also be balanced against faculty time and other institutional “asks” related to data and reporting.
Working Group 3: Faculty Wellbeing: Help Seeking, Transparency, and Communication
Faculty may face a myriad of challenges as they navigate their academic careers ranging from conflicts with peers or supervisors, to concerns about one’s own or others’ mental health, to negative review or promotion decisions. Some resources and supports are well known, while others are not.
Working Group 4: Invisible Labor and Recognition
Many schools, colleges, divisions, and departments at DU have worked to develop dashboards through Department Equity Action Planning (DEAP) teams as a step toward addressing workload equity. However, dashboards are not likely to address all workload equity issues, including issues related to invisible labor and how to recognize or reward service or other labor.
Working Group 5: Clarity and Equity in Reappointment and Promotion
Reappointment and promotion is guided by the DU Policies and Procedures Relating to Faculty Appointment, Promotion, & Tenure as well as school, college, division and department guidelines. Faculty continue to express concerns about the clarity and equity of these policies and processes. Recent research also points to biases in common practices including external reviews and DEI statements.
Working Group 6: Interdisciplinary Collaboration
COACHE survey results clearly point to the desire among faculty for more interdisciplinary collaboration as well as the barriers and silos that make this type of collaboration difficult. These collaborations carry a great deal of potential for innovative scholarship, teaching, and programming and yet often struggle to coalesce and sustain. Some of the challenges are related to individual time and capacity, while others are related to funding practices and other structural challenges.
Working Group 7: Faculty Wellbeing: Connection and Community
Creating cultures of culture and belonging and trusted relationships are important elements of workforce wellbeing. Faculty (along with their staff colleagues and students) have been navigating stressors in the larger world including the pandemic, racial unrest, political divisions, and the conflict in the Middle East as well as DU-specific stressors including enrollment and budget challenges. While wellbeing is always important, it has perhaps never been more so.