2022-2023 Faculty Development and Leadership Programs

Attend this informational session to learn about our new Employee Assistance Program (EAP) provider, SupportLinc, and the available services to help support you as a faculty member at Northwestern.

The EAP program for faculty, staff and household members (including children and dependents up to age 26 living outside of the home) provides a network of emotional and mental health support services, including short-term counseling, to help address everyday life challenges in a confidential, professional and supportive manner.

Hosted by the Faculty Wellness Program and HR WELL.

Maintaining a steady pattern of productive writing is challenging even for the most motivated writers. This workshop will cover habits and structures that will help you hold on to your identity as a researcher and writer while still balancing your internal and external responsibilities.

Participants will learn to:

-Write in regular, moderate sessions rather than "binges." 
-Plan short and long-term writing and research goals that are specific, rather than vague.
-Use metaphors to reframe the process to something more energizing than "pushing a boulder up a hill."
-Employ structures to create oases of focused time.
-Engage in relational crafting to build support and accountability for research and writing goals.

Presenter Biography: Rena Seltzer is a leadership and faculty coach and dynamic trainer with over nineteen years of experience coaching academics across the span of their careers.

Successful researchers benefit from a robust network of connections in a variety of arenas inside and outside of academia. Advantages include opportunities for fruitful collaboration, access to information, both social and instrumental support, and the ability to build a national and international reputation. For those who network easily, this workshop will provide additional tips and strategies. For those who are "schmooze-adverse," the workshop will identify methods to build connections in ways that suit your personality and style.

This workshop will support participants to:

-Understand the difference between operational, personal, and strategic networks
-Cultivate relationships with both senior scholars and peers to match various needs for instrumental assistance and support
-Communicate effectively with editors, program officers, and other academic gatekeepers
-Assess your own professional network by creating a Network Ecomap™ and using it to develop a strategy for strengthening and adding connections
-Build and sustain diverse networks

Presenter Biography: Rena Seltzer is a leadership and faculty coach and dynamic trainer with over nineteen years of experience coaching academics across the span of their careers.

The Essential Skills for Leading Departments lunch series equips chairs with the knowledge and skills they need for success, including proactively working to enhance department culture and managing conflict to ensure the success and retention of faculty and staff, as well as of students.

This session will focus on understanding staff motivation, best practices for keeping staff engaged and productive, and where to obtain resources for various situations

The Essential Skills for Leading Departments lunch series equips chairs with the knowledge and skills they need for success, including proactively working to enhance department culture and managing conflict to ensure the success and retention of faculty and staff, as well as of students.

Participants will learn:

-Skills and tactics for building trust, communications, and community for faculty colleagues in your department
-The components of high-quality communications and best practices for creating connections and respectful engagement
-Chair’s leadership role in creating a thriving community in which people work together well. 
-How to rebuild community ties which have been broken during COVID and recreate expectations for respect and trust

The Essential Skills for Leading Departments lunch series equips chairs with the knowledge and skills they need for success, including proactively working to enhance department culture and managing conflict to ensure the success and retention of faculty and staff, as well as of students. 

Participants in this session will learn skills and tactics for managing up, down, and across with peer faculty members. This event is open to Department Chairs only.

Facilitator: Sarah Klaper, University Ombuds

The Essential Skills for Leading Departments lunch series equips chairs with the knowledge and skills they need for success, including proactively working to enhance department culture and managing conflict to ensure the success and retention of faculty and staff, as well as of students.

Participants in this session will learn skills and tactics for improving department climate and belonging for BIPOC faculty and other underrepresented faculty to increase satisfaction, success, and retention.

Facilitator: Michelle Manno, Assistant Provost for Diversity and Inclusion

The goal of the session is to facilitate discussion around the role of the chair in the promotion and tenure process, with particular focus on the chair’s role in providing mentorship and guidance to junior faculty, and guidance to promotion and tenure committees and/or senior faculty.

The Essential Skills for Leading Departments lunch series equips chairs with the knowledge and skills they need for success, including proactively working to enhance department culture and managing conflict to ensure the success and retention of faculty and staff, as well as of students.

Facilitator: Sumit Dhar, Associate Provost for Faculty