Faculty Development Sessions

UPCOMING SESSIONS

Our spring semester programming has now concluded. Please take a look at our past events below.

PAST SESSIONS

Parenting on the Tenure Track
Parenting on the Tenure Track brought faculty together for a thoughtful conversation about balancing parenting and academic life. The event highlighted the importance of setting boundaries, protecting high-value hours, and creating sustainable approaches to work and family responsibilities.

Demystifying the Tenure Process
Eugenia Lean, Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs, led a session to help demystify the tenure process. This session included an outline of the TRAC (Tenure Review Advisory Committee) review process, along with tips about CV format, publications, and strategic networking to cultivate a list of possible future referees.

Bridging Sectors: Building Research Partnerships
Join the faculty development panel exploring how researchers can build and sustain meaningful collaborations with nonprofit organizations and industry partners. Faculty panelists Andrew Rundle (Professor of Epidemiology), Vishal Misra (RKS Family Professor of Computer Science), and Stephanie Grilo (Associate Professor of Population and Family Health) will share their experiences developing innovative, cross-sector partnerships that move research beyond traditional funding models while maintaining a strong commitment to scientific integrity and societal impact. This conversation offers insights for faculty interested in expanding their research collaborations, leveraging new funding opportunities, and translating academic work into broader public benefit.

Preparing for a New Semester of Teaching
Join the CTL and fellow instructors as we prepare for a new semester of teaching. During this session, we will discuss and share practical strategies for course planning, creating a welcoming classroom environment, and engaging students from day one. Connect with colleagues, exchange ideas, and gain actionable tips for your teaching practice and ensure a successful start to the semester.

Using AI to Support Your Teaching
Are you curious how you might leverage AI in your teaching and course design? Then join the CTL for this hands-on workshop, focused on helping you explore practical uses of AI in your instructional practice. You will begin by identifying time-intensive teaching tasks – such as drafting learning objectives, assignment prompts, rubrics, examples, or quiz questions – and then experiment with AI to assist with those tasks. You’ll have time to experiment with AI using your own course materials and critically evaluate the AI-generated outputs to determine their usefulness for your teaching context.

Funding Forward: A Conversation with Health Sciences Foundation Leaders and Grant Makers
Join the Office of Research Initiatives and Development and the Office of Alumni and Development for a session on how foundations in the health sciences are approaching grantmaking in today’s challenging climate and provide insights into the opportunities and expectations shaping this funding landscape. The conversation will explore strategies for building successful approaches and help researchers strengthen their engagement with health-focused foundations.

Practicing Empathetic Communication: Building Bridges in Real Time
Join us for an engaging session on empathetic communication. In this session, faculty will explore practical empathetic communication techniques to support inclusive teaching, strengthen relationships with students and colleagues, and transform conflict into constructive dialogue. Faculty will build skills in de-escalating conflict, collaborative dialogue, and learn to adapt their communication style to foster understanding and connection—even when conversations may be tough.

Parenting and the Tenure Track
Being a parent comes with many joys and challenges. Parenting while navigating life on the tenure track (in New York City, no less) can be even more complicated. If you are a faculty parent (or a soon-to-be parent), join us for an informal panel to learn from the experiences of other faculty parents. Join colleagues from the Office of Work/Life and the Office of the Vice Provost for Faculty Advancement to share the aspects of parenting that are keeping you up at night (literally—or figuratively) and how our offices can support you. After the conversation, experts from these offices will be on hand to answer your individual questions.

Funding Faculty Research: Navigating Columbia's Research Resources
This session provided an overview of Columbia’s research funding landscape featuring presentations from University Corporate & Foundation Relations in the Office of Alumni and Development; Office of Sponsored Projects Administration; the Office of Research Initiatives and Development; and the Industry Relations Group at Columbia Technology Ventures. Colleagues from these offices discussed their distinct roles and how they work with faculty to support academic research.

Funding Faculty Research: Meet and Greet with Foundation Funders for Early Career Scientists
Dimitra Koutsantoni, Senior Director of University Corporate and Foundation Relations, led a conversation with Gerard Brandenstein, Managing Director of the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation, Daniel Goroff, Vice President and Program Director of the Sloan Foundation, Anne Hultgren, Executive Director and CEO of the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation, and Laura J. Kaufman, Columbia University Professor of Chemistry and Chair of the Department of Chemistry, on funding programs for early career faculty in STEM fields. The discussion covered the aims and goals of foundation fellowships, the selection process for candidates, differences between federal and foundation proposals, and the impact of early career awards on academic careers.

Designing, Implementing, and Refining Evaluation Rubrics
Rubrics are an evidence-based tool for bringing structure, clarity, and fairness to evaluations for admissions, hiring, grading, fellowship and awards. Like all tools, though, how they are designed and put to use matters much for the outcomes that can be expected. As part of developing equity-minded selection systems, this workshop offers an opportunity to delve into best practices for developing rubrics, how to avoid symbolic adoption when implementing them, and ways to refine rubrics that may be already in use. Activities are designed to aid departments in ensuring alignment with both the current legal landscape and organizational values, and connect to other elements of selection processes such as the application. Participants are asked to bring existing rubrics for review, improvement, and discussion. Participants without an existing rubric will work to imagine what a rubric for their program can look like. 

Funding Faculty Research: Meet and Greet with Foundation Funders
Are you interested in learning about the foundation philanthropic landscape and hearing directly from representatives from foundations that support academic research and programs? Dimitra Koutsantoni, senior director of university corporate and foundation relations, will lead a conversation with foundation leaders and faculty colleagues on foundations’ missions and funding priorities, decision-making processes, and ways they develop partnerships with higher education institutions and faculty. Faculty will also learn about Columbia's Office of Corporate & Foundation Relations and strategies for finding support for their research.

Funding Faculty Research: Columbia Development and Fundraising 101
How can faculty find philanthropic support for research? Please join OVPFA and leaders from University Development and Alumni Relations for an overview of Columbia's fundraising efforts. Paul Kennan, senior vice president, and Ryan Carmichael, vice president for University Development, and Dimitra Koutsantoni, senior director of university corporate and foundation relations, will provide a general roadmap of development and fundraising at Columbia and how faculty can best engage with potential donors.

Anti-Racist Pedagogy in Action: A Columbia Faculty Panel
Classrooms often serve as microcosms of larger society, and it is no surprise that instructors across Columbia, and higher education more broadly, have reimagined their own pedagogical approaches with a lens toward inclusivity, equity, and anti-racism. In partnership with the Center for Teaching and Learning, join us in a discussion with Columbia faculty who are engaging with anti-racist pedagogies in their classes. During this 90-minute panel discussion, five instructors will share how they enact anti-racist pedagogies in their courses and then take questions from the audience.

Silencing Your Inner Critic
During this session led by executive coach Patricia Hayling-Price, learn practical strategies for dealing with Imposter syndrome, building confidence, and managing stress.

Understanding and Doing Antiracist Classroom Assessment
This workshop considers what antiracist assessment can be in university courses and how faculty from across disciplines from Humanities to STEM courses can meaningfully engage in it. Led by Asao B. Inoue (Arizona State University) he argues that classroom assessment is an ecology made up of seven interconnected elements which can provide a way to design and enact antiracist assessment practices in courses. There will be a Q&A period and a handout of resources.

Supporting Trainees in Your Unit
During this session, we will discuss best practices in mentoring with particular attention to historically underrepresented students and trainees in the academy. The panel discussion will include guidance on onboarding, mentoring, and training, and will highlight relevant portions of the Office of the Provost’s Guide to Best Practices in Faculty Mentoring and will share other helpful resources.

Building your Professional Brand
The shift from remote to in-person conferences and events offers faculty an additional impetus for establishing a unique and memorable professional brand. In this virtual session, led by executive coach Patricia Hayling Price, faculty participants will learn strategies for developing and leveraging their existing online presence to position themselves as thought leaders in an offline context.

Demystifying the Tenure Process
New to the tenure track? Latha Venkataraman, Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs, will lead a session to will help demystify the tenure process.This session will include an outline of the TRAC (Tenure Review Advisory Committee) review process, along with tips about CV format, publications, and strategic networking to cultivate a list of possible future referees.

LinkedIn Basics: Creating a Compelling Profile
As a follow up to last year’s popular Leveraging LinkedIn session, Acacia O’Connor, Director of Social Media, and Jen Leach, Associate Director for Faculty Advancement, will show examples of powerful LinkedIn profiles and walk faculty through the process of creating their own. 

Leveraging Linkedin
Whether you have a LinkedIn profile, or if the thought of learning yet another social media platform inspires feelings of dread, this is the session for you. Faculty participants will learn strategies for using LinkedIn to network, to share (and publish) research, and to increase visibility in their chosen field (especially among potential promotion letter writers). 

Restoring Equilibrium in Times of Stress: Getting a GRIP on your MBTI Type 
Working from home and juggling family responsibilities amid the backdrop of COVID-19 and national political turmoil, faculty are experiencing unique and sustained stresses that impact their relationships. In this session, led by renowned executive coach Patricia Hayling Price, participants will explore their Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) type, gain insight into their individual triggers and unique stress “grip response,” and learn strategies to return to equilibrium. 

How to Be a Visible LGBTQ+ Ally 
This workshop provides guidance on ways to support lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students and colleagues, and covers a range of topics including language, support services and resources. Participants will identify strategies to build solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community, and create an action plan to make their solidarity visible.

Lose your Fear of #AcademicTwitter
Twitter is a powerful platform that scholars can leverage to network, to share their work, and to find possible collaborators. During this period of physical distancing and virtual work, your online presence takes on a greater significance. How can faculty cut through the digital noise and establish an authoritative online presence? Our panel of faculty Twitter pro users will discuss the use of the platform to promote research, creative, and scholarly work, to stay engaged with academic communities, and to educate others.

*As a reminder, Columbia faculty may use the Back-Up Care Advantage Program, which provides care for anyone who relies on you when your usual arrangements are disrupted.