Once again, the annual workshop held at the Valles Caldera Science and Education Center in Jemez Springs, NM was a big success. The three-day workshop was packed with exercises and collaboration for the largest group of junior faculty in the workshop’s four year history. The program continues to be of great value for new and up-and-coming faculty members across various fields and backgrounds. “The sequestered environment during a down time of the year with the perfect number of diverse colleagues was perfect. This workshop filled a need I didn’t fully realized I had,” observed one participant in a survey conducted after completing the workshop. “I plan to lead a few lab meetings with my group so I can disseminate some of the knowledge and tools to my own group.” See more feedback below.
Similar to previous years, this year’s agenda
included many engaging presentations and discussion topics. Highlights from this year’s workshop include:
- Planning and Writing Effective Proposals, Scott Collins, PI for the Long Term Ecological Research program at the Sevilleta Research Station and William Michener, PI for NM EPSCoR & DataONE
- Increasing your Productivity: Concepts, Tools, and Discussion, William Michener
- Teaching that Produces Learning: Best Practices Backed By Research, Gary Smith
- Mentoring, Mary Jo Daniel, Associate Director for NM EPSCoR
- Communicating Science to the Media, Sandra Blakeslee, NY Times
science reporter - Leader as Facilitator, Carl Moore, The Community Store
- Communicating with Decision-Makers: How Government Decisions about Science Funding Really Works, Robert Gropp, American Institute of Biological Sciences
Presentations and the full agenda are below. If you are interested in the Faculty Leadership Workshop, please join the NM EPSCoR listserv to stay updated.
Presentations, Documents and Agenda (PDF)
- View the Valles Caldera National Preserve Science and Education Center Brochure (PDF).
Q: What did you find most useful about the Faculty Leadership Workshop?
“- meeting other 'young' researchers in similar positions, although from very different disciplines - having TIME to think about how to be productive, effective and useful in my discipline”
“The sequestered environment during a down time of the year with the perfect number of diverse colleagues was perfect. This workshop filled a need I didn't fully realized I had! But now that I have it, I feel I now have significantly greater capacity and access to helpful tools. I plan to lead a few lab meetings with my group so I can disseminate some of the knowledge and tools to my own group, which I'm really excited about too. Day one (productivity, proposals, teaching) was especially great covering topics which many of us really haven't had access to formal training in.”
“The unique selection of themes; the powerful presentations; the free books; the great experts, professionals, and professors; the active involvement of learners; the strong diversity of the group; providing numerous opportunities for extensive collaboration and networking among the group; project activities; the role play activities and receiving individualized training; having the opportunity for individual presentations; sharing individual research; caring and flexible approach; nice facility, the overall organization of the program.”
