Message from the Vice Provost for Faculty Success

Greetings Mean Green Colleagues,

Welcome to our month of faculty celebrations. As visualized on our banner, we will soon be honoring our 2023 Salute to Faculty recipients! Our faculty pictured have been recognized with the prestigious UNT Foundation awards for their excellence in teaching, leadership, research, and service. I am excited to honor them and so many more of our outstanding faculty later this month. Faculty Success and the University Libraries will also celebrate our book authors in the UNT Salute to Faculty Book Authors Celebration on April 25. I hope you will join us.

UNT’s Neurodiversity Initiative is collecting feedback on services and support they can provide faculty in helping our students. As I’ve shared in a previous posting, my youngest daughter is neurodiverse, and we are always learning new ways to engage and support her. I urge you to complete their survey and attend one of their future sessions.

Finally, your Faculty Success team and partners are still offering programming in the last few weeks of the semester that can help you make a smooth landing into the summer teaching and research season! Listed below are teaching development sessions, highlights from our NTT Faculty Resource Group, and more on fellowship opportunities from our International Affairs partners.

I hope you will find some time to enjoy the beautiful weather and events in the Denton and broader Dallas and Fort Worth area. From music, shopping, the arts, movies, and even Alpaca yoga (yes, I did say that!), it is here in this wonderfully diverse community. 

Talons up!

Holly M. Hutchins, Ph.D. (she/her)

Vice Provost, Faculty Success

SPOT Opens April 17

Student Perceptions of Teaching (SPOT), UNT's student evaluation system, gives students the ability to confidentially provide constructive feedback to their instructor and department to improve the quality of student experiences in the course. SPOT opens April 17 and closes May 4. Through the faculty portal, you can add your own questions to your course evaluations, pull past term reports, and preview surveys created by your department SPOT coordinator.

Neurodiversity Initiative

UNT is working to make our campus a more inclusive space for students who are neurodivergent, and we need your help! Complete a brief survey to help us create trainings, identify best practices, and share tips and tricks with you!

Interested in learning more about UNT's Neurodiversity Initiative? Check out the services we currently offer students.

New Speaker Series: World Leaders in Big Data Analytics

April 14 | 1 p.m. | Union 332

The Department of Geography and the Environment and UNT Data Analytics will co-host their new series' inaugural speaker, Dr. Tony Grubesic, professor in the School of Public Policy at the University of California Riverside, for a seminar on Human-Centered Data Science. Come learn how a human-centered approach can help communities (and analysts) augment strategies and policies to improve society and the environment.

Faculty Book Group

April 18 | 2-3 p.m.

Register now

Join DSI CLEAR and faculty colleagues for a discussion of Sheryl Burgstahler's Creating Inclusive Learning Opportunities in Higher Education: A Universal Design Toolkit. The book applies the Universal Design in Higher Education framework to physical spaces, technology, teaching and learning activities, and teaching and learning services.

Inclusive Feedback to Guide Student Learning in Online Courses

Virtual Lunch & Learn

April 21 | 12-1 p.m.

Register now

Inclusive feedback in online courses can help instructors build rapport and guide student learning. In this virtual luncheon workshop, faculty will craft feedback that employs growth mindset language, draws connections to career goals, and invites dialogue through student feedback.

Non-Tenure Track Faculty Mentoring Network

The Non-Tenure Track Faculty Mentoring Network welcomes all non-tenure track employees to engage in conversations about the many roles they perform at UNT. 

The network is a large, diverse group of professionals who serve a broad spectrum of students and clients with a variety of needs. They teach, conduct research, run clinics, and maintain libraries, including many combinations of these functions.

They strive to:

• Share their best selves and undivided attention every day,
• Support their colleagues with open hearts and minds, and
• Treat each other the way they wish to be treated.

In pursuit of these goals, the network offers training resources and career-enriching events and opportunities. In the 2022-23 academic year, they hosted social networking events as well as sessions with campus partners including the Dean of Students, Office of Disability Access, and Faculty Information System. Future events include meetings with Angie Cartwright, assistant vice provost for faculty success, and Provost Michael McPherson.

Jannon Fuchs, professor of biological sciences, earns 2023 CUR-Goldwater Scholars Faculty Mentor Award

"This award speaks volumes, beyond Dr. Fuchs's excellence as a neuroscientist, to her career-long championship of research-based undergraduate education," says James Duban, associate dean of research for TAMS and the Honors College.

"Several Goldwater Scholars have emerged from her lab, while each of our university's 70 Goldwater Scholars has benefited from her feedback over the past three decades because of her invaluable service on UNT's Goldwater Scholarship Faculty Nominating and Mentoring Committee. Then, of course, there are countless other undergraduates and graduate students who have been fortunate enough to enough to experience her classroom and laboratory instruction."

Congratulations on this well-deserved honor, Dr. Fuchs!

Faculty News Roundup

• Diana Berman, associate professor of materials science and engineering, received a 2023-24 Fulbright Scholar Award to conduct tribology research in Israel.

• Matthew Lemberger-Truelove, Peggy Ceballos, and Dan Li in the College of Education received a $3.8 million grant from the Department of Education to improve school-based mental health services.

• The Medical Library Association named a scholarship after Ana D. Cleveland, Regents Professor of Information Science, in honor of her accomplishments as an educator, scholar, mentor, consultant, and recruiter in the field of health sciences librarianship.

• Sarah Evans, assistant professor of information science, was interviewed by Spectrum News about her new graphic novel aimed at boosting health literacy.

• Public administration graduates and faculty were featured in the Denton Record-Chronicle discussing how they're using their nonprofit leadership degrees to make a difference.

Academic Integrity Resources

As your students work on their end-of-semester papers, remind them that they need to acknowledge the prior contributions of the scholars who set the stage for their research. The Libraries' plagiarism guide provides helpful tips on how to avoid it, and students can consult the Information Literacy Tutorial guide for more about citations and academic integrity. 

Developing Inclusive Syllabi

The spring is an excellent time to review and refine syllabi for fall. Beyond outlining policies, course assignments, and deadlines, an inclusive syllabus contributes to students’ sense of belonging and conveys your commitment to supporting their overall success.

DSI CLEAR’s syllabus development tool provides examples for how to present clear expectations and procedures while also encouraging and normalizing the use of resources that enhance learning and engagement. 

The Student Experience Project’s online module Your Syllabus as a Tool to Promote Student Equity and Growth provides practical tips for developing and reviewing syllabi. 

Share Your Feedback with UNT Administration



The Faculty Senate will send out Qualtrics surveys soon for the evaluation of university administrators by faculty. This is your opportunity to anonymously evaluate deans, associate deans, chairs, and the university’s senior administrators. Aggregated results data will be shared with the Senate and university community when completed, and the individual results will be shared with each evaluated administrator and their supervisor as part of the continuous improvement process.

A Qualtrics survey concerning the annual review process and department PACs will be sent shortly to all full-time faculty to gain feedback regarding department processes and concerns. 

Elections Update

Faculty Senate elections are ongoing. When the voting group elections are completed, elections for at-large vacancies will commence.