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Workshop Program

Heads and Chairs of Earth and Space Science Departments

Sunday, 11 December 2022, AGU Fall Meeting, Chicago, IL

Workshop held at: Hyatt Regency McCormick Place, Room Prairie B; Address 2233 S Martin Luther King Dr, Chicago, IL 60616

Registration: has passed.

Agenda

Plans for the Day (7:30-8:15)

7:30-8:00 a.m Breakfast

8:00-8:15 a.m. Welcome, Logistics, and Introductions

  • Introductions (all) – Name, title, and Institution only.

Morning Session (8:15 a.m.-12:15 p.m.)

8:15 -12:15 p.m. Tools for leading an inclusive department/unit (Acrobat (PDF) 22.1MB Feb24 23) (C.K. Gunsalus, Director, NCPRE; Elizabeth A. Luckman, Clinical Assistant Professor of Business Administration, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; Sarah Mustered, Presentation & Teaching Lead and Interim Assistant Director, NCPRE)

  • How can you foster a supportive work environment and elicit the best from yourself, your faculty, and your staff, even in the face of challenging situations? This interactive, scenario-based session tailored for heads and chairs of STEM units, will focus on difficult conversations around important topics in today's academic environment including gender and sexual harassment, racial microaggressions, and setting and maintaining a positive, inclusive unit-wide tone. Common characteristics of healthy units, troubled units, and units flashing warning signs will be presented, as well as some best practices to nuture high-functioning, constructive departments.

Resources

Lunch (12:15-1:15 p.m.)

  • Please grab a box lunch and network with your colleagues

Afternoon Session (1:15-4:30 p.m.)

1:00-2:15 p.m. Small group discussions on topics of interest and report out

2:15-2:30 p.m. Stretch break and transition to next segment

2:30-4:15 p.m. Impact of COVID-19 on Students and Early Career Professionals

  • Updates from Covid-19 Impacts, AGI Study (PowerPoint 2007 (.pptx) 2MB Dec12 22)(Christopher Keane, AGI)
  • Facilitated group discussion with a few early career professionals and their issues (Presenters TBD)
    • challenges of starting faculty position in pandemic
    • early career people less engaged in meeting for many reasons/pressures
      • e.g. family obligations shift, soft money & missed opportunity- field work disruptions, harder teaching expectations with changes in modality, mental health etc., PhD students leaving for other positions, lack of culture & direction for future, penalty in T&P expectations/delay, networking with senior people who can easily work remotely was shut down
      • dissonant time now with some longer time faculty saying Covid-19 is over when many challenges remain with new structures, sustained disruptions etc.
    • Solution ideas- strategize & look to models that are building cohorts & networks. Make sure there are meeting opportunities in place & more. Provide mentorship & expectations as chair. Share & apply models & structures for doing work in today's time. Distribute/collaborate/build partnerships w institutions with fewer resources/supports 
  • Community actions and next steps

4:15-4:25 Opportunities from NAGT and SERC (Sarah Fortner)

4:25-4:30 Workshop Evaluation (SERC)

Reception (4:30-5:30 p.m.)

Workshop Support

  • Pranoti Asher, AGU Assistant Director; AGU Bridge Program Project Director 
  • Sarah Fortner, SERC/Carleton College 
This workshop is a collaboration between the Building Strong Geoscience Departments project and AGU. The workshop website is supported by NSF under grant DUE-0817353 to the Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College.