New Faculty Forums series supporting all professors

Professors of all ranks finding value in New Faculty Forums

Richard Cairney - 30 June 2016

(Edmonton) A series of New Faculty Forums designed to help engineering professors of all ranks has kicked off. The first in the series, held July 5, focused on research.

Tian Tang, who holds the Canada Research Chair in in Nano-biomolecular Hybrid Materials and teaches in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, was one of the presenters.

Tang says academia is "a very dynamic environment" that evolves with time. It's important more experienced professors attend the forums as well.

"There may be new funding opportunities, new NSERC rules, new Research Services Office resources, there may be new teaching ideas and methods," she said. "These can all be valuable to even experienced academics. Also, each of us is independent individuals and we bring different perspectives to share. At least for me, having been at the U of A for almost 10 years, I still learned from the event on (July 5)."

Mechanical engineering professor Carlos Lange says that although professors are expected to have knowledge of the teaching system and how to secure funding, "our initial ideas are often naive."

The Faculty Forums support all academics but are especially valuable to those early-career professors.

"The faculty and all colleagues want to help colleagues as much as possible for to achieve excellence and obtain tenure," he said. "In addition to mentoring, these forums are a good way to kill many flies with one swat."

Lange says when he first joined the Faculty of Engineering he attended the faculty forums and sought teaching techniques from the Centre for Teaching and Learning and took advice from more senior academics.

During the July 5 Faculty Forum, he added, a handful of senior professors, himself among them, were on hand.

"We were also able to add our two cents, which hopefully helped the few young professors. The new professors should definitely make better use of these opportunities," he said.

Professor in chemical process and design Marnie Jamieson, who started teaching process design in 2010, says the sessions are important for developing your skills as a teacher and researcher. A session on teaching last year, for example, "helped to launch longer term conversations and identified people I could test out ideas with."

She's now seeking research opportunities and says the Faculty Forum was a great help.

"As I'm just starting to investigate funding options for design and engineering education research, this part of university life is new to me," Jamieson said. "Having the opportunity to ask questions, understand the process better and get some sage advice from the presenters and professors like Janet Elliot was valuable. It's also very nice to be able to network. I find our faculty is very collaborative and the forums are an extension of that collaboration.

"The faculty forums are like most communities in that there is always the opportunity to meet potential collaborators since it brings together people from across the faculty, but I like them more for the mentorship, development, and learning opportunities. I really appreciate that new and experienced professors attend."