By SUSAN JONES
With a new dean and some recently added associate deans, the Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences is looking at different ways to do things, and that includes how to onboard new faculty members and department chairs.
This is particularly important this year because there have been a substantial number of new faculty hires in the past year at Pitt’s largest school, and of the 93 full-time people starting this fall, nearly two-thirds are stepping into faculty roles for the first time.
The new people are part of an effort to catch up from the “big slowdown in hiring” during the pandemic, said Dietrich Dean Adam Leibovich, which included shutting down any searches that weren’t finished by March 2020. The school also had several faculty take the retirement incentive offered in 2020.
“We’re not actually back to what I would consider full strength, but we made some good progress in that direction,” Leibovich said.
“Given the size and scope of the Dietrich School, we thought it was important to have a Dietrich-centric version of onboarding,” Leibovich said. The program started three years ago and has evolved. “We also survey the recently onboarded faculty to find out what they thought worked well and what did not work so well. And so we modified it using those results.”
Jessica Hatherill, Dietrich’s executive director for administration, said, “The one thing … we heard from the faculty was that they really wanted practical information.”
The first part of the training was held in August for new tenure, tenure-stream and appointment stream faculty. It included a resource fair with people from inside and outside the school “who are there to help them with their research and their teaching,” Leibovich said. There were representatives from the Counseling Center, Pitt IT, the University Library System, Study Lab and someone from Human Resources to answer questions about benefits. Another session will be held later this month for visiting and part-time faculty.
“One of the things they said they wanted to know more about is the students they would see in their classes in the next week when they were started teaching,” Hatherill said. “There was a lot of concern about student mental health and well-being, and so that’s one of the reasons why we wanted the Counseling Center to talk.”
A panel discussion with all the newly appointed and outgoing associate deans covered topics like what does it look like to be a member of a department; how do you navigate your department faculty meetings; how to you getting involved at the school and University level; and how do you navigate the Dietrich School and the University?
Leibovich said this is just the beginning of a “much more extensive revamp of how we handle onboarding in the Dietrich School.” Part of that will involve getting more information into new faculty members’ hands earlier — even before they show up the campus — and then “following up, certainly in the first year at least, to just make sure that they we have touchpoints with them to make sure that they are getting what they need to be successful.”
Pitt-wide training
University-wide new faculty orientation also has evolved since the start of the COVID crisis, according to Michael Bridges, director of the University Center on Teaching and Learning.
Rather than hosting an in-person, half-day event, the Teaching Center offers a series of virtual, live webinars focusing on research, teaching and the libraries. These webinars are delivered across the summer and allow faculty members who are not yet on campus to participate. Sessions are recorded and made available to those who were unable to attend.
The Teaching Center also has launched a new effort called New Faculty Essentials. This includes a monthly newsletter, curated especially for new faculty, with just-in-time information, information about resources, and important dates. Each newsletter also highlights a unit on campus that may be important to new faculty.
In late August, a live, in-person faculty resource fair was held. At this event, representatives from approximately 25 campus units were available to meet and talk with new faculty.
Then on Sept. 19, the Teaching Center will host the annual Welcome Reception to New Faculty. This is an event attended by the chancellor, interim provost, senior vice chancellor for health sciences and a host of other deans and department chairs. It serves as an official welcome and is purely social, Bridges said. “It offers new faculty members an opportunity to meet each other, meet last year’s cohort of new faculty (we invite them too), and interact with University leadership.
“The bottom line is rather than creating an event where so much information is delivered in a single setting (often described like drinking from a fire hose), we have spaced information and resource availability across time and modes of delivery,” Bridges said.
New department chairs
The Dietrich School has 30 departments and several interdisciplinary programs — including three where the director supervises faculty. The school has long done orientation for new department chairs, but thought it was time to do it a bit differently.
Previously, the orientation was an overwhelming, one-day event, Leibovich said. “You’re sitting there. They’re pouring information into you and then you’re sent on your way.”
The plan now is to spread the information out at different sessions during the semester. “A lot of the information you’re given is important right away,” the dean said. “Then there’s information which is going to be important later in the academic year and instead of giving you that information right in the start, it would make more sense to tell you when it’s relevant.”
Again, this approached was informed by talking to people who had gone through the process last year. Maureen Lazar, Dietrich’s director of workforce effectiveness, said she talked to eight new chairs and two program directors about what was helpful and what they wished they had known when they became chair.
“There was not one person that did not say (the one-day training) was a lot,” Lazar said. “And I think we also have to recognize that not only is it a lot of information, but it’s at the start of the year, at the start of the semester when everybody is coming at the new chairs, whether it’s faculty, staff, students, and so they’re already overwhelmed.”
Some of the questions Lazar asked the chairs she surveyed were: How can we provide better resources about the data that is available? How would they like to receive information when they’re meeting as a group? What would they like to learn from other chairs? How would they like to engage with other faculty and chairs and the dean’s office across the board?
The first smaller session with new chairs and directors was held Sept. 5. “One of the things we do then is have them work with some of the staff members to make sure that they have a good working communication right up front,” Leibovich said.
“Then we’ll have a number of further orientations,” he said. “But for those we’ll invite everybody, not just the new chairs. So the existing chairs and program directors can come if they want to have a refresh about any particular subject.”
Some of the issues that people have brought up with Lazar are:
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How important it is to have role clarity with staff, because there can sometimes be overlap between positions.
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Information about the different calendars that are out there. “That was a big reoccurring theme and that you need to make sure that you’re not just looking at one calendar; you’re looking at a variety of calendars for all the different deadlines that are happening based on different offices.”
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A better understanding of budgets and finance. “Because for some of our chairs, this is the first time that they are engaging in that role,” Lazar said.
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How to make certain that we’re giving a rationale behind some of our asks. “It’s not just because we’re interested in you taking on additional responsibilities,” Lazar said. “Instead this is how we’re going to use this information to better the school and our departments and make it a great experience for our students.”
Susan Jones is editor of the University Times. Reach her at suejones@pitt.edu or 724-244-4042.
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