Welcome to the October 2020 issue of our newsletter focusing exclusively on our college’s research mission. Each month, CLAS Research Resource will provide you with updates on policies, upcoming grant opportunities and deadlines, research-relevant information on facilities and information technologies, and a roundup of our scholars’ latest and greatest accomplishments.
New Research Advisory Board
I have two things I’d like personally to tell you about this month. The first is that I have formed a new Research Advisory Board (RAB), as part of my efforts to increase the flow of information between CLAS scholars and the Dean’s Office. The RAB includes three prominent research faculty from each of four main divisions of CLAS: the arts, humanities, social sciences, and natural and mathematical sciences. We will meet a few times each semester, during which I hope to learn from RAB members about issues that affect research, scholarship, and creative activity; get feedback on ideas for enhancing the research mission of CLAS; brainstorm ways to enhance interdisciplinary research; and, occasionally, to work through new policies or initiatives. The inaugural members of the RAB are:
- Arts: Robert Bork (Art and Art History), Gregory Hand (Music), and Daniel Fine (Theatre Arts)
- Humanities: Luis Martín-Estudillo (Spanish and Portuguese), Sarah Bond (History), and Ashley Howard (History/African American Studies)
- Social Sciences: Marina Zaloznaya (Sociology and Criminology), Eric Tate (Geographical and Sustainability Sciences), and Christopher Veeh (Social Work)
- Natural and Mathematical Sciences: Craig Kletzing (Physics and Astronomy), Michelle Voss (Psychological and Brain Sciences), and James Shepherd (Chemistry)
I am grateful to these scholars for agreeing to serve, and I look forward to our first meeting sometime later this month.
Mitigating COVID-related productivity loss
My second announcement is about a special one-time award mechanism we rolled out this month: 2020 Deans’ Research Micro-Grants for Probationary Faculty. In response to the continuing disruption of research due to the novel coronavirus pandemic, CLAS deans have pooled our unused personal research/travel funds to provide a small number of “micro-grants” of up to $2,000 each to probationary tenure-track faculty ($17,000 total funding; ~8-12 micro-grants will be awarded depending on requests). Here are more details, from the DEO mailing of September 30. We see this one-time micro-grant initiative as a small gesture toward “putting our money where our mouth is,” and one component of our plans to support probationary faculty during a disruptive time.
In addition, this semester, I am working with a group including fellow associate deans (both inside and outside of CLAS) and representatives of the OVPR and the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies to consider ways to mitigate the loss of productivity brought on by pandemic-related lab shutdowns, lack of travel, and loss of audiences. As always, I welcome any ideas and suggestions you may have—reach out anytime (joshua-weiner@uiowa.edu).
Meetings with DEOs
Finally, let me remind you that I am continuing to schedule meetings with every department’s DEO along with a couple of their representative researchers, scholars, or artists. As I noted last month, I am using these meetings to learn how each department defines its research mission and what I can do to help them succeed. I am also touring each department’s spaces to learn how facilities impact its research. DEOs, please be on the lookout for invitations from Allison Bierman for these meetings; we’ll get to everyone as the academic year proceeds. If you’d like to get on the schedule ASAP, let Allison know (allison-bierman@uiowa.edu).
Thank you for all you do to move forward our college’s research mission.