UNM Welcomes Influx of New Faculty

The Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico will see many new faces on cam­pus this fall and they aren’t all in the stu­dent ranks. UNM hired more than 100 fac­ulty in the last year and they are attend­ing new fac­ulty ori­en­ta­tion on Mon­day and Tues­day, Aug. 13–14, in the Stu­dent Union Build­ing on the UNM campus.

On Mon­day, the focus is on every­thing from ben­e­fits, admis­sions and fac­ulty rights, respon­si­bil­i­ties and rewards, to cur­ricu­lum overview and inter­na­tional initiatives.

“The Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico looks for­ward to wel­com­ing this strong pool of new fac­ulty,” Provost Chaouki Abdal­lah said. “They have already demon­strated exper­tise in their respec­tive dis­ci­plines. New fac­ulty ori­en­ta­tion will accli­mate them to UNM, pro­vide them with the addi­tional skills and train­ing nec­es­sary for them to be effec­tive in the class­room and for them to teach and guide their stu­dents to aca­d­e­mic success.”

On Tues­day, OSET, or the Office of Sup­port for Effec­tive Teach­ing, offers Get­Set and ReSet, a full sched­ule of brief sem­i­nars to help new fac­ulty adjust to UNM, as well as to aid return­ing faculty.

Ses­sions include:
Teach­ing that Sup­ports Our UNM Stu­dents, taught by OSET Direc­tor Gary Smith. Smith notes the impor­tance for fac­ulty to under­stand who their stu­dents are and to appre­ci­ate the diverse cul­tural knowl­edge and ways of know­ing they bring to the classroom

The Grad­u­ate Resource Cen­ter offers a ses­sion: Help­ing You Sup­port Your Grad­u­ate Stu­dents
Par­tic­i­pants can find out about the ser­vices GRC offers, includ­ing one-on-one writ­ing and sta­tis­tics con­sul­ta­tions, writ­ing boot­camps and aca­d­e­mic and research ori­ented work­shops.

Teach­ing with Click­ers: Tech­niques to Max­i­mize Learn­ing in Your Class­room is also taught by Smith and will help fac­ulty learn about well-documented instruc­tional meth­ods that add learn­ing value to the class. The ses­sion will show fac­ulty how to engage stu­dents to dis­cuss what they’re learn­ing, an essen­tial com­po­nent of large lec­ture halls.

Another course addresses Active Learn­ing in Large Classes, while another teaches how to Get Stu­dents to Think Dur­ing Multiple-Choice Tests.

Another course, Fac­ing the Class: Your Teach­ing Per­sona, Respect and Cred­i­bil­ity, helps fac­ulty explore ways that expe­ri­enced teach­ers have learned to man­age their iden­ti­ties to gar­ner respect and cred­i­bil­ity as well as pro­mote civil­ity in the classroom.

An import course, Respond­ing to Dis­rup­tive or Dis­turb­ing Stu­dent Behav­ior is being taught by a team from Stu­dent Health, Dean of Stu­dents and Uni­ver­sity Coun­sel. The ses­sion will help instruc­tors iden­tify poten­tially trou­ble­some behav­ior and deter­mine a course of action, includ­ing who to con­tact and when, avoid­ing aggra­vat­ing a sit­u­a­tion or inap­pro­pri­ately com­pro­mis­ing a student’s privacy.

Other ses­sions focus on WebCT as a teach­ing tool, and numer­ous oppor­tu­ni­ties for fac­ulty to learn about grant fund­ing sources and ways to apply for funding.

For more infor­ma­tion and com­plete sched­ules, visit:

New Fac­ulty Orientation

GetSet/ReSet

Media Con­tact: Car­olyn Gon­za­les (505) 277‑5920; email: cgonzal@unm.edu