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UC San Diego Division of Physical Sciences Junior Faculty Mentoring Resources

Below is a list of campus resources and suggested topics to discuss with your faculty mentor and other faculty as a starting point for mentoring; this list is not meant to be complete. Having a mentoring network can be useful, beyond your official mentor, as faculty colleagues can provide different perspectives. Talking regularly to both peers and more senior faculty is also useful.

Teaching

Campus Teaching + Learning Commons

Provides individual faculty consultations, hosts teaching workshops and features other teaching resources via the Center for Engaged Teaching. This is the place to reach out to if you want help (re)designing a course, making a syllabus inclusive or getting feedback on your classroom teaching. You can also direct your students/TAs here for writing support, content tutoring, supplemental instruction and teaching workshops.

Instructional Technology Guide

CAPEs

This is where to find student evaluations of courses, including tips on increasing student responsivity rates and how to add questions for your courses. Campus is also working to promote the use of additional measures of effective teaching: Academic Senate workgroup on Holistic Teaching Evaluations

Inclusive classroom practices

There are many great websites and publications, including:

Funding for course development

Note that some departments offer (partial) course relief in order to develop a new course.

Topics to discuss with other faculty: how to request new courses, how to support/mentor your graduate teaching/instructional assistants (TAs/IAs), how to use discussion sections effectively, how to incorporate active and cooperative learning (including “clickers”), what a typical syllabus looks like, what teaching a freshmen/senior seminar entails, what alternative grading schemes are used and how you can access sample course materials for particular courses within your department. Teaching faculty and/or faculty who have won teaching awards may be particularly good resources for teaching-related questions.

Research

Office of Research Affairs

Provides a range of services, including lists to internal and external funding sources as well as a curated collection of resources for writing grant proposals. See also the New Faculty Guide to Competing for Research Funding.

Early Career Faculty Awards

NSF CAREER, Sloan Research fellowship, Cottrell Scholars, campus Hellman fellowships; complete list at: http://spo.berkeley.edu/fund/newfaculty.html. See the complete list at: http://ucsdcloud.sharepoint.com/sites/RA-RD/SitePages/Early-Career-Guidance.aspx

HHMI Guide on Scientific Management for New Faculty

Inclusive mentoring practices for your research group

http://www.brown.edu/sheridan/teaching-learning-resources/inclusive-teaching/inclusivementoring
http://www.nap.edu/resource/25568/interactive/

Topics to discuss with other faculty: how to recruit and mentor students and postdoctoral researchers, whether to write review papers and how to bolster your publication record, which conferences to attend, how to cultivate advocates within your field at other institutions, write successful grant proposals, manage funding, secure speaking invitations, use effective practices for collaboration, how to prepare review and promotion files, how to promote your work via your website and other social networks and which awards you might be eligible for.

Service

All faculty members are expected to engage in service activities, with increasing expectations (to department, university, and field) at higher ranks.

It’s important to become a member of relevant professional societies (ie, APS, ACS, AMS, AAS, AAAS) and maintain those memberships so that you can both sponsor younger people and also be eligible for society-specific fellowships and awards.

Topics to discuss with other faculty: what are reasonable service loads, when to say ‘yes’ and how to say ‘no’ to service requests and which professional societies to join.

Professional Development

Campus programs

Faculty “bootcamp” (Faculty Success Program)

Extremely useful 12-week program hosted by the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity (NCFDD), aimed at women and URM faculty

Research Communications Program

Additional resources

Campus funding for EDI efforts

Division of Physical Sciences EDI Funds Request

Division of Physical Sciences Dean’s Office Hours

Campus information for new faculty

Features very helpful information on housing, family and childcare, assistance programs, benefits and financial planning. Includes information about faculty housing assistance: http://evcra.ucsd.edu/housing/index.html

Faculty and Staff Assistance Program

Policies and procedures associated with your academic appointment:

UC San Diego Policy & Procedure Manual
Committee on Academic Personnel (CAP) FAQs
University of California Academic Personnel Manual (APM)

“The Academic Personnel Manual (APM) includes policies and procedures pertaining to the employment relationship between an academic appointee and the University of California. The APM is issued by the Office of the President and applies to all campuses and laboratories. The UC San Diego Policy and Procedure Manual (PPM) Section 230 provides additional academic personnel policies that are specific to UC San Diego (including all units under its jurisdiction). PPM 230 supplements the policies and procedures set forth in the APM, and must always be applied in conjunction with that manual.”