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Dear Colleagues,
This Homecoming Week is full of exciting events that showcase the breadth of amazing opportunities our campus provides to connect with others, highlight incredible research discoveries and celebrate all UC San Diego has to offer.
Yesterday, the Chancellor and I were honored to welcome Nobel Laureate Donna Strickland to our campus. As a fellow physicist, it was an amazing way to celebrate not only the accomplishments of one of the most talented individuals in my field, but also placed an exclamation point on this, the 60th anniversary of Maria Goeppert Mayer’s winning the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963. As one of UC San Diego’s founding faculty members, Mayer helped pave the way for researchers like Donna Strickland, Andrea Goetz, and Sally Ride and built a wonderful legacy for the strong campus we have today.
Today we broke ground for the Ridge Walk North Living and Learning Neighborhood project, providing residences for 2,400 of our current undergraduates, as well as brand-new space for Marshall College, the Economics Department and GPS, an interactive artistic glass lab, and a Basic Needs center. This will be another exciting educational, scholarly, and co-curricular hub on our campus and is just one of the things I’ll highlight when I meet parents and families as part of the 2023 Homecoming and Family Weekend events that began earlier this week and continue into the weekend.
UC San Diego is a vibrant place at all times, especially in the fall when the energy of the new year is high. I hope you will have the opportunity to participate in the myriad of activities happening on campus, and I look forward to running into you when we’re all out and about.
Best Regards,
Elizabeth H. Simmons
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The easiest way for us to talk is to come in during my office hours. |
Read the latest EVC blog post...
Academic Personnel Initiatives to Improve Transparency, Efficiency and User Experience
With a focus on improving the efficiency of operations within Academic Personnel Services, Senior Associate Vice Chancellor Bob Continetti and Cindy Palmer, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Academic Personnel Services, have shared a number of initiatives designed to improve the efficiency of the system and provide transparency to faculty and staff regarding the status of the academic review process.
I recently spoke about these initiatives at a Representative Assembly meeting for the San Diego Division of the Academic Senate and wanted to share with everyone the memo detailing these efforts.
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October is National Arts and Humanities Month
October is National Arts & Humanities Month, a collective recognition of the importance of culture in America and the largest annual celebration for the arts and humanities in the nation. In recognition, the School of Arts and Humanities is inviting the campus community to engage in a range of programming designed to inspire and educate. More than 30 events are being held throughout the month, ranging from concerts and a cultural festival to art exhibitions and panel discussions with experts. Perhaps you’d like to journey back in time and step into the captivating world of the 1911 World’s Fair in Turin, Italy? A special presentation and reception on October 27 will allow you to do just that. This event will launch the next phase of a newly designed, interactive website that demonstrates how hundreds of rare and original materials – as well as the 3D reconstructions of the buildings themselves – can be used today, digitally. Or maybe you’d like to celebrate the history of filmed entertainment and take a look forward into the future of filmmaking and TV with a panel of industry experts and filmmakers at the “Storytelling: Envisioning the Future, Honoring the Past” event on October 28 at the Suraj Israni Center for Cinematic Arts. Visit the webpage for this month to explore all the events and opportunities.
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Park & Market Intersections Series Features Female and Mexican Artists
UC San Diego’s Park and Market has launched several new Intersecciones special presentations featuring writers, musicians, and filmmakers from across Mexico, as part of the Intersections Concerts. Upcoming events also include a special Collaborative All-female Jazz Concert featuring the soulful tunes of three female-led jazz ensembles on Monday, Oct. 23, from 5 to 8:30 p.m. in The Guggenheim Theatre. To purchase tickets, visit the event’s page on the Park & Market website.
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Homecoming 2023 Events Continue Into the Weekend
UC San Diego is bustling with excitement for Homecoming and Family Weekend, which continues through October 22. Staff, faculty, students, alumni, parents and friends are invited to participate in the celebration, with the Homecoming event lineup showcasing a mix of new and fan-favorite programs tailored for all community members.
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Academic Personnel Initiatives Aim to Improve Transparency, Efficiency and User Experience | |
In partnership with Center for Faculty Diversity and Inclusion, the New Faculty Academy is a pilot program for faculty new to UC San Diego. The program includes academic-year long workshops with the first one, Getting Started with Effective and Equity-Minded Teaching, scheduled for Tuesday, Oct. 24. To sign up, please visit the registration page online. The Engaged Teaching Hub, which is part of the Teaching + Learning Commons, continues to offer Fall quarter faculty teaching workshops related to GenAI/ChatGPT, anti-racist pedagogy, and other general topics.
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Equity in Mental Health Series Offering Two Upcoming Workshop Sessions
Two campus-wide workshops for faculty, lecturers, instructors, grads, and postdocs as part of the Equity in Mental Health will take place in early November. The workshop, Harnessing Our Collective Resilience: Restructuring Our Learning Spaces for the Success of All, is November 6 for postdocs and graduate students and November 7 for faculty and instructors. Registration is required. Postdocs and grads can register online here, and for faculty and other instructors can register here. In this workshop, led by Mays Imad, there will be an examination of the state of higher education and the increase in self-reported burnout, overwhelm, and disengagement. Participants will also learn about the science of biological and behavioral resilience, and the recent discourse on resilience in education, highlighting the consequences of expecting students to withstand hardships. Educators will be invited to explore how to create resilient spaces in which colleagues and students, particularly those from historically underserved and marginalized backgrounds, are equipped with the necessary skills, resources, and support to navigate the various challenges they encounter, as well as to grow and learn from these experiences.
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The Co-Curricular Record is Being Upgraded
It’s been roughly six years since the Co-Curricular Record (CCR) made its debut on our campus. Since its original launch the database has been relatively the same, with only minor changes. This summer, the Experiential Learning team, in collaboration with the database developer, began the process to upgrade the database into a new system. The system database is still being updated, which is why some students have not been able to submit new applications and revisions to current positions are not being accepted. An anticipated relaunch of the co-curricular record system with its new database is expected in the next few weeks. If you would like to be a part of the “soft launch” of the new database to test out the new features, please sign up on the co-curricular interest list. While the campus awaits the new co-curricular record system, Experiential Learning Specialists are eager to host information sessions for students and staff on the co-curricular record. Please reach out to the team at el@ucsd.edu to schedule an information session. For any questions, thoughts, or concerns on the co-curricular record, please contact Rochelle Smarr, director of Experiential Learning.
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Proposals for 2023-24 UC-HSI DDI Due Next Month
The proposal submission deadline for the 2023-24 Request for Proposals for the UC-HSI DD is noon on Friday, Nov. 17, 2023. This is a systemwide grants program designed to support faculty diversity and inclusion in the UC, offers two funding mechanisms: 1) small awards up to $50,000 and 2) large awards up to $350,000. The competitive grant awards to UC faculty/faculty administrators will support short and long term programs/projects to enhance and expand pathways to the professoriate for underrepresented minorities with a goal to increase faculty diversity and inclusion at UC. For more information, please visit the UC-HSI DDI webpage: ucop.edu/graduate-studies/initiatives-outreach/uc-hsi-ddi.html
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All Parents In-Person Mixer at Women's Center
The Women’s Center is offering all UC San Diego faculty and staff an opportunity to connect with other UC San Diego parents in-person with a mixer on Wednesday, Nov. 8, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. This mixer is open to all parents, whether they have been attending existing parent support groups or not. To register for this free mixer, which will be held at the Women's Center Conference Room in Student Center West, above Blue Pepper Thai Restaurant, please email wcprograms@ucsd.edu by Nov. 2 at Noon. Limited space is available and those who are registered will receive an email confirmation of your registration. This mixer is a collaboration between the Faculty and Staff Assistance Program and the Women’s Center, and will be facilitated by Izabel Caetano Francy, LCSW, an FSAP counselor and licensed clinician, who is also a full-time working parent.
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Neurodivergent Support Groups Offerings Continue
The Faculty and Staff Assistance Program (FSAP) is continuing to offer:
- Neurodivergent Staff Support Group
- Parents and Caregivers of Neurodivergent Kids Support Group
- Neurodivergent Postdoctoral Scholars Support Group
- Working with Neurodivergence: Consultation Hour for Faculty
For more information on all of these groups, including when they meet, please visit the FSAP Classes, Workshops and Groups page online.
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How Do We Teach Science? UC San Diego Launches STEM Education Research Program | UC San Diego has launched one of the only programs aimed at training students in the emerging field of STEM research education. The new program gives undergraduate students coveted research experience while also asking them to think critically about how science is taught and to whom. | | | |
Nanoparticle Vaccine Could Curb Cancer Metastasis to Lungs by Targeting a Protein | UC San Diego engineers have developed an experimental vaccine that could prevent the spread of metastatic cancers to the lungs. Its success lies in targeting a protein known to play a central role in cancer growth and spread, rather than targeting the primary tumor itself. | | | | | | |
