2018-2019 Provost’s Faculty Fellows

Carolyn Bird

Professor, Department of Agriculture and Human Sciences, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

Mentor: Katharine Stewart, Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs

Project: The Department Head Professional Development and Support Program will identify opportunities for professional development topics to enhance and expand the department head professional development program. Key strategies include a review of the current climate workshop, a review of existing literature, and interviews with stakeholders, including department heads, deans and faculty members. These activities should result in recommendations for modifications and updates to the department head training curriculum.

Jason Bocarro

Professor, Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management, College of Natural Resources

Mentor: Katharine Stewart, Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs or Bailian Li, Senior Vice Provost for Global Engagement

Project: One potential project will focus on supporting the needs of professional faculty. Surveys, focus groups and meetings with deans/department heads will generate ideas to improve the current culture for professional faculty at NC State including updated promotion

standards and professional development support. A second potential project will focus on helping to plan and implement the 2019 University Global Partnership Network conference, to be held at NC State in April.

Jane Lubischer

Assistant Department Head, Teaching Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, College of Sciences

Mentor: Duane Larick, Senior Vice Provost for Academic Strategy and Resource Management and Chief of Staff

Project: The current semester will be used to explore possible projects, potentially related to one of the following: defining academic priorities, interdepartmental programs, funding models, or productivity measures. One type of project would focus on the creation of a specific program, such as an interdepartmental/intercollege program for all NC State first-year students. A second type of project would focus instead on developing tools for use in strategic academic planning.

Roger Narayan

Outreach and Engagement Faculty Fellow
Professor, Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering

Mentor: Leslie Boney, Director, Institute for Emerging Issues, Vice Provost for Outreach and Engagement

Project: This project will explore best practices for community engagement and the broader impacts for grant applications and meaningful engagement. The project will explore how current engagement trends translate to service-learning courses, and the mechanisms on campus that can help NC State build community engagement more broadly. Deliverables will include a white paper on the trends of broader impacts needed by funders, and identifying two service-learning presenters from STEM fields for the Outreach and Engagement symposium in April.

Janice Odom

Outreach and Engagement Faculty Fellow
Director, Caldwell Fellows Program

Mentor: Leslie Boney, Director, Institute for Emerging Issues, Vice Provost for Outreach and Engagement

Project: Enhancing Service Learning at NC State will include review of the Provost’s Service Learning Task Force report, assessing the current status of service learning at NC State and identifying obstacles to service learning initiative execution. The project will also focus on the identification of service learning gaps. Deliverables include creation of a service learning strategy, identification of four service learning presenters for the Outreach and Engagement symposium, and coordination of the symposium program.

Paola Sztajn

Associate Dean for Research and Innovation, Professor, Department of Teacher Education and Learning Science, College of Education

Mentor: Katharine Stewart, Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs; Tom Miller, Senior Vice Provost for Academic Outreach and Entrepreneurship

Project: The overarching goal of the Faculty Innovation and Entrepreneurship project is to investigate the set of behaviors and rewards used in higher education (e.g., reappointment, promotion, and tenure (RPT); standards; metrics; operating procedures) to encourage faculty innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurship. Although there exists at NC State initiatives designed to foster innovative scholarship (e.g., faculty realms of responsibility beyond teaching, research and service; Chancellor’s Innovation Funds, Chancellor’s Faculty Excellence Program), more work is needed to incentivize faculty to become innovators, creators and entrepreneurs. Deliverables include a project report with suggestions for processes, behaviors and norms that can foster faculty innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship at NC State; and the creation of seminars for tenure-track and tenured faculty on improving innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship.