We work with individuals and teams to build on their existing leadership and collaboration skills and to build networks of collaborative relationships with other faculty who share common intellectual pursuits. Our workshops focus on strategies and tools that are flexible enough to accommodate a range of personal styles and can be applied immediately. The R&CA team can also work with you one-on-one to develop a personalized strategy to fit your personal goals.
While faculty develop strong subject matter expertise over many years in their academic career, they may only search for help in expanding their interpersonal communication skills when parts of their careers become complicated. The Center for Faculty Excellence R&CA team offer these workshops to provide scaffolding activities and stimulate conversation on what actions could facilitate these complicated aspects of faculty careers.
R&CA 131 Presenting your Scholarly Self
When meeting another person for the first time, it can help to have a succinct message about yourself and your work to share with them. In this workshop you will prepare your self-introduction through exercises to produce a one slide and a 2-minute verbal introduction relevant for meeting colleagues at conferences, beginning discussions with funding organization program managers, and acquainting yourself with others who are interested in your work.
R&CA 133 Growing your Community/Network
Growing your professional community offers opportunities for knowledge sharing and learning, showcasing your work, and identifying potential collaborators. Attend this workshop to learn more about expanding your professional network and building meaningful, mutually beneficial relationships.
R&CA 135 Increasing your Personal Productivity
This workshop provides tools to help faculty improve their ability to balance competing priorities and manage multiple ongoing efforts with varying timescales. Join this workshop to learn about productivity approaches and tools that you can adapt and tailor to your individual style and needs. Topics include: Assessing your portfolio of activities; strategically aligning your efforts to priorities; and keeping long-term projects on track.
R&CA 235 Increasing Productivity Within a Group
Whether you are planning to set up your research group or are already underway, this workshop will provide some brainstorming activities and discussion with peers, as well as present resources and tools for you to structure, guide, and coordinate your research group and to reduce the workload associated with managing students and researchers. Tools to increase group productivity and lower manager stress include: Setting expectations through a welcome letter; creating loose group hierarchies; structuring group meetings; leveraging project management tools.
R&CA 400 Transforming Education with Classroom Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs)
Aligning your research and creative activities with your teaching can support student academic outcomes and your R&CA goals. CUREs are in-class experiences that engage students in conducting novel research and creative activities that would enhance, and be of interest, to your broader field. This workshop will discuss how to use your R&CA work to create a CURE.
Collaborations can enable faculty to tackle bigger projects and problems by leveraging another person's complementary expertise. In this way, faculty can leverage outside expertise without having to learn a new discipline themselves. Whether one partners with faculty internal or external to OU, it can often be more successful to grow a collaboration over time, starting from a stimulating conversation. These conversations may take place at topical conferences or meetings of professional societies. In addition to these venues, OU's Center for Faculty Excellence R&CA team provides two methods for faculty interested in meeting others to come together: Ideating sessions and networking events with trans-disciplinary OU centers and institutes.
Ideating Sessions
CFE regularly partners with OU faculty leaders to cohost ideating sessions that gather faculty around a specific topic. In previous years, topics have included: virtual reality + education research; health, well-being, and the built environment; climate adaptation; carceral studies; and the convergence of data science and aerospace, defense and global security. Sometimes the crystallizing force is an external funding opportunity such as the DOE urban integrated field laboratory, the NSF Materials Research Science and Engineering Center, and the OU Big Idea Challenge.
R&CA 332 OU Networking with the Oklahoma Aerospace & Defense Innovation Institute (OADII)
This introductory event facilitates OU Norman faculty engaging with the Oklahoma Aerospace & Defense Innovation Institute (OADII) strategic research vertical, meeting OU colleagues interested in and applying research methods in aerospace, defense, and global security challenges of today and tomorrow. Researchers can learn about ongoing work and ideate directions in which we can truly impact our society's challenges.
R&CA 333 OU Networking with the Institute for Resilient Environmental & Energy Systems (IREES)
This introductory event facilitates OU Norman faculty engaging with the OU Institute for Resilient Environmental and Energy Systems (IREES) strategic research vertical, meeting OU colleagues interested in and applying research methods in this space, learning about ongoing work, and ideating directions in which we can truly impact our society's challenges.
R&CA 334 OU Networking with the Institute for Community & Society Transformation (ICAST)
This introductory event facilitates OU Norman faculty engaging with the OU Institute for Societal and Community Transformation (ICAST) strategic research vertical, meeting OU colleagues interested in and applying research methods, learning about ongoing work, and ideating directions in which we can truly impact our society's challenges.
R&CA 337 OU Networking with the Institute for Public Policy Research & Analysis (IPPRA)
This introductory event facilitates OU Norman faculty engaging with the OU Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis (IPPRA) and meeting OU colleagues interested in conducting research in this cross-cutting foundational institute. Come and learn about ongoing work and explore new possibilities for networking and new projects. IPPRA is an interdisciplinary team working to address complex public policy problems. We specialize in projects designed to improve social choice infrastructure, enhance resilience, and work toward better solutions to today's complex challenges.
R&CA 335 OU Networking with the Data Science Institute for Societal Challenges (DISC)
This introductory event facilitates OU Norman faculty engaging with the OU Data Science Institute for Societal Challenges (DISC), meeting OU colleagues interested in and applying data science, learning about ongoing work, and ideating directions in which we can truly impact our society's challenges.
R&CA 338 OU Networking with the Advanced Radar Research Center (ARRC)
This introductory event facilitates OU Norman faculty engaging with the OU Advanced Radar Research Center (ARRC), meeting OU colleagues interested in and applying radar technologies, learning about ongoing work, and ideating directions in which we can truly impact our society's challenges.
