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| Staff Newsletter | April 2021 |
Dear colleagues,
Spring Quarter has begun, and with the new quarter, we launch a newsletter for you, the Office of the Provost staff. This newsletter's goals are twofold: to celebrate our individual and team accomplishments and to provide information that is timely and relevant to Office of the Provost staff.
As members of Northwestern’s central academic offices, it is important that we have a shared understanding of our strategic goals and vision, and that we accurately reflect them in our interactions with other members of the University community. My hope is that this newsletter becomes a regular and reliable resource for you to learn about not only our initiatives, but also what your colleagues are working on and accomplishing every day.
This newsletter complements the existing newsletter for faculty members, and the formats of both newsletters will likely evolve with your input and feedback in the coming months. If you have ideas to make this newsletter more helpful, let us know. If you want to share news, send us an email. And if you see information in a newsletter that you think would be helpful to other units, by all means forward it.
I am excited about this new resource for sharing information among our various offices. I encourage you to make time to read the newsletter each month, stay engaged and know that even if we can’t mention every award and accomplishment, I am very proud of all you do to make this one of the world’s best universities.
Thank you,
Kathleen Hagerty |
Awards and recognition |
Dennis Clark Solas Award
The Welcoming Center, a nonprofit that promotes inclusive economic growth through immigrant integration, honored Health Professions Advising Director José Ramón Fernández-Peña with its Dennis Clark Solas Award on March 3 for his work advocating for the quality and accessibility of healthcare for immigrants.
Women’s History Month recognition
Robin R. Means Coleman, vice president and associate provost for diversity and inclusion and chief diversity officer, and Parneshia Jones, director of Northwestern University Press, were featured in Diverse: Issues in Higher Education magazine’s annual report recognizing 25 women for their significant contributions to higher education. Northwestern was the only university to have two women on the list in the magazine's annual Women's History Month special edition. |
All about the staff |
Featured colleague
Brag about your teammates! We will feature one staff member in each future newsletter. Nominate someone by emailing the Office of the Provost and telling us, in a sentence or two, how your colleague contributes to Northwestern’s mission and why everyone in the Office of the Provost should get to know them.
New staff arrivals since Fall Quarter
Buffett Institute for Global Affairs
Professional development
Advance your knowledge base, demonstrate your enhanced qualifications or highlight a new credential on your resume through one of Northwestern's massive open online courses (MOOCs). These courses are offered at no cost to staff, faculty, students and alumni. You can earn a course certificate and access all Northwestern MOOC content on Coursera free of charge.
Staff who are interested in advancement opportunities at Northwestern are encouraged to regularly check job listings on the careers website.
Personal wellness
The Office of Human Resources offers Mental Health First Aid (MHFA), an evidence-based training created by the National Council for Behavioral Health. MHFA is designed to provide participants the skills to identify, destigmatize, understand and respond to signs of mental illnesses and substance use disorder, enabling those trained to offer immediate, concrete support. |
News and notes |
Website redesign
The Office of the Provost has engaged with the Office of Global Marketing and Communications to launch a redesign of the office’s website. All units will be engaged in the process as the site is upgraded to better reflect the office’s guiding principles and to improve user experience. Completion of the full project could take up to seven months, but expect to see incremental updates along the way. This project will be inclusive of all pages that fall under the northwestern.edu/provost structure on the website. Units whose webpage URLs do not begin with northwestern.edu/provost will not be included in the first phase of this project. Staff are welcome to submit initial input on this project via online form.
COVID response update
As the University shared in a March 30 message to faculty and staff, school and unit leads have been encouraged to look for opportunities to safely increase our in-person activities. Staff members in the Office of the Provost are welcome to check with your supervisor or unit lead for specifics on returning to campus. In a message sent last week, Northwestern encouraged staff members to get vaccinated. Any faculty or staff member who becomes fully vaccinated through a location other than Northwestern University is asked to disclose to the University the type of vaccine received and the date(s) of vaccination. These disclosures are entirely voluntary.
Social justice commitments
Many units within the Office of the Provost—in particular, the Office of Equity and the Office of Institutional Diversity and Inclusion—have been integral to addressing Northwestern's commitments to social justice, especially over the past year. On March 31, University leaders sent a comprehensive community message containing important updates about the progress made and future plans, which also are documented on the Social Justice website. The message came just one week after the University shared the results of its external review of campus safety and subsequent action steps. All staff in the Office of the Provost—regardless of unit or job duties—should familiarize themselves with these recent updates and, more importantly, should conduct their work in a way that is reflective of these community goals and values.
Commencement plan
As Northwestern plans for Graduation Weekend from June 12-14, members of the Office of the Provost are asked to be ready to support the University’s efforts to celebrate the Class of 2021, as well as the 2020 graduates whose ceremonies were canceled due to health and safety restrictions. Preparing for modified ceremonies on short notice will be a team challenge, but there are many ways we can help while still protecting the health and safety of anyone who does or does not choose to participate in the in-person elements of the weekend.
Presidential transition
Last month, Morton Schapiro announced that his time as Northwestern’s 16th president will conclude Aug. 31, 2022. Spanning academics, research, fundraising and the overall student experience, Morty’s impact on Northwestern—including on many of the units that comprise the Office of the Provost—has been profound over the past 12 years. While the University prepares for a transition in leadership, there is much to accomplish before the arrival of our next president—particularly as we plot Northwestern’s path forward through and past the COVID-19 pandemic. Those goals and priorities will be communicated across various platforms in the coming months.
Additional updates
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Mark your calendar |
Featured University events
Help us build future newsletters! If your unit is working on a project that is relevant to the entire Office of the Provost, or if you have awards or honors to share, send an email to officeoftheprovost@northwestern.edu. |
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Learn more about the Office of the Provost |
