UNM academic leaders have released important information to include in your fall syllabi, including on AI and academic integrity, campus safety, and freedom of speech.
New faculty member? We got you. See our information page just for you, and check out the new faculty onboarding checklist from the Office of Academic Personnel.
A series of updates to Title IX regulations include several important changes for UNM faculty, students and staff.
The new regulations in Title IX, which prohibits sex-based discrimination, were approved by the U.S. Department of Education earlier this year, took effect Aug. 1, 2024.
These new regulations better align with other federal discrimination law, expand discrimination reporting requirements, and offer more protection to students for pregnancy or related conditions, according to UNM Title IX Coordinator Angela Catena. Additionally, there is a new requirement for faculty and staff to complete training on an annual basis.
Learn more in our story.
The UNM IRB has released several updates for fall:
New Deadline for Full Board Agenda Items
The UNM IRB is recruiting a Prisoner Representative to serve on the IRB
Fall Semester IRB Workshops
Learn more about the UNM Accessibility Resource Center through their new list of FAQs for faculty members.
Please help us welcome a variety of new faculty to campus. Click the bios of new faculty to learn more about their research and background.
Research and Discovery Week features an exciting schedule of events that showcase the excellence and diversity of UNM’s research enterprise, promote resources and opportunities available to UNM researchers, and foster the principles of ethical, engaged, collaborative, and fulfilling scholarship. Most importantly, these events also highlight the unique contributions of our faculty, staff, and students to the intellectual capital of our institution and enable our collective ability to positively impact our communities, our state, our nation, and the world.
Need a snack delivered to your office? There’s a robot for that! Check out the news about a new food delivery service on campus.
Ahead of the fall 2024 semester, Advance at UNM and the Office of Academic Affairs hosted a series of workshops for faculty, staff and graduate students on developing communities in academic settings and on responding to conflict and stress in the classroom. The workshops were part of an ongoing series on academic freedom and civil campus conversations.
The workshops for faculty and staff were led by Mikhail Lyubansky, a teaching associate professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Lyubansky, who teaches several restorative justice and positive psychology classes, also presented at UNM earlier this year on keeping campus conversations civil. Steph Posey, a doctoral student in the School of Information Sciences, University of Illinois, Urbana- Champaign, who is also a youth development practitioner, co-led the sessions that were for graduate students.
The series included two workshops, each of which lasted two hours and included time for interactive exercises and discussion. Learn more and see workshop handouts.
Wondering about when you’re eligible for the latest vaccines, what they protect against and how well they work?
This chart from epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina sums them up for you.
Find a variety of faculty development opportunities on our events calendar.
UNM data show that during the pandemic, many faculty members spent less time on research and scholarship and related professional development as they revised their teaching and dealt with new and different demands in their home lives. As we transition out of the pandemic, the WeR1 Faculty Success Program seeks to support UNM faculty in new and creative ways.
The overarching goals of the WeR1 program are to:
— Modify institutional policies and processes to support faculty retention and advancement, increase transparency, decrease administrative burden, and work towards balanced service and teaching loads;
— Create structures that acknowledge and address the impact of the pandemic, which may last well into the next decade;
— Provide resources that allow faculty to transition, rebuild, recover, and/or refocus their research, scholarship, and creative work, through support that encompasses both small steps and expansive interdisciplinary initiatives;
— Develop new mechanisms for recognizing faculty success in all areas of the university’s mission;
— Build communication, collaboration, cooperation, and community across all UNM campuses.
Explore currently available opportunities below and visit the UNM Research page to see others.
ECURE is an NSF-funded grant designed to leverage UNM’s research mission to enrich undergraduate education in STEM general education and portal courses. It is led and supported by Academic Affairs, the Office of the Vice President for Research, the Division of Equity and Inclusion, and the Office of Student Affairs. ECURE is based on the following key concepts:
— Engaging students in undergraduate research (UGR) experiences will positively impact their science literacy, science identity, and research self-efficacy, as well as their likelihood to persist and graduate at UNM.
— Engaging students in UGR in general education and portal courses will allow us to serve more students than co-curricular programming alone, and will help students connect course content to professional, community and research applications.
— Engagement in undergraduate research can be offered at varying levels of research immersion. These levels range from students learning about research without actually conducting research to students implementing all stages of their own authentic research projects (see descriptions of the levels below). All levels of early research immersion are useful to achieving desired student outcomes described above, and to creating more effective and diverse pathways to more advanced co-curricular research engagements within their majors.
To this end, ECURE supports instructors in incorporating undergraduate research components into their general education and portal sections, and studies the impact of these enriched engagements on student perceptions and behaviors.
Learn more.
This fall, the University Libraries is holding its second annual OER Grant Program. During the 2024-2025 Academic Year, the OER initiative at UNM has the potential to save students between $466,000 and $486,000 based on historic enrollments and textbook prices. This fall, the University Libraries would like the savings to continue. The University of New Mexico Open Textbook Pilot Program will be accepting proposals for OER adoption, adaptation, and creation grants. This program is designed to support faculty, instructors, and graduate students with the adoption, adaptation, and creation of OER materials into their courses as a way to increase student success.
OER work, particularly OER authorship and development, can require extra effort on the part of instructors, and this grant program is developed to address this. Interested applicants can register for an informational session to learn more about the program:
Information session dates:
The deadline to submit applications for the second annual Open Textbook Pilot Program is October 1st, 2024. These proposals will be evaluated by a subcommittee of the OER Working Group. Work in this program should begin in the spring and/or summer of 2025.
This library guide for the grant program contains more details and the link to fill out an application.
Graduate Studies seeks a faculty fellow to work on a special initiative in strategic recruitment. This position represents a unique opportunity to help shape our institutional approach to key UNM2040 goals: inclusive excellence , student success, and advancing New Mexico. If you are passionate about graduate education and interested in a leadership role, we encourage you to apply!
The fellow will work in a strategic capacity with the Dean of Graduate Studies and other campus units to analyze and enhance UNM’s approach to strategic recruitment across our many graduate programs. The position will be funded in spring and summer 2025, with an expectation of extension for the 2025-26 academic year. Compensation includes a monthly stipend, annual course release, and summer funding. Applicants must have experience working with a UNM graduate program and must be willing to learn about a variety of approaches to strategic recruitment.
This flier provides full details about the position and application process.
The Office of the Vice President for Research (OVPR) is pleased to announce that the 2024 application window for the Program for Enhancing Research Capacity (PERC) is now open in UNM’s InfoReady Review portal. PERC supports acquisition of shared instrumentation or enhancement of shared facilities that enable major endeavors to advance discovery, creativity and innovation across campus. This program seeks to add or augment research capacity through the acquisition or upgrading of instrumentation for use by multiple investigators. Thus, the proposed equipment must be housed within a space accessible to more than one PI/lab group and must have multiple committed users either within a single department/college, or preferably from multiple departments and colleges. See this document for program eligibility and details.
Important dates for PERC:
Learn more about past PERC awardees and the WeR1 Program for Faculty Research Support.
The 2024–25 Fostering Research Expansion in Social Sciences and Humanities (FRESSH) Program establishes one cohort with two tracks: one focused on the Social Sciences and one focused on the Arts and Humanities.
In-person sessions will take place approximately monthly on Friday mornings throughout the academic year and will last 90 minutes. At least one additional virtual enrichment session will take place monthly on a different Friday. The cohort will develop research concepts and proposals suitable for funding opportunities from federal agencies or major foundations.
The FRESSH program will focus on awareness and utilization of internal resources, targeted training for opportunity scoping, concept and proposal development, and building community around Social Sciences, Humanities, and Arts research.
Find more details in the InfoReady Review Portal.
The Subcommittee on Learning Studios is requesting submission of proposals to teach in a Technology Enhanced Learning Studios (TELS) for Fall of 2024.
The TELS are classrooms with additional technologies to facilitate collaborative learning. These studios are equipped with multiple projection screens, white boards, one or more overhead projectors, and round tables that seat nine. The best consideration date for proposals is Friday, March 15th with proposal submissions being discontinued after March 29. (The committee is aware that this is a quick deadline and will be understanding if there are incomplete portions to the proposal.) All interested instructors, especially first-time users, are encouraged to apply.
Learn more on the Center for Teaching and Learning website.
Learn how to help your students develop a sense of belonging in your classes (and at UNM!) through high-impact, low-effort techniques that have been shown to work here. Join colleagues from across campus in the next SEP cohort.
Email StudentExperienceUNM@unm.edu for more information on the Zoom information sessions on March 27 and 28, and the application link.
Faculty can now apply for Fall 2023 Provost Professional Conference Support funds. The goal of the program is to provide support after all other sources of conference travel funding have been exhausted. There will be three rounds of funding review, with deadlines for submission of Aug. 4, Sept. 18, and Oct. 16, 2023.
Learn more about the program.
Please note that this year’s deadline has passed. Stay tuned for next year’s information.
The Office of the Vice President for Research (OVPR) is pleased to announce that the application window for the 2025 Spring Faculty Scholarship Time (FaST) competition is now open in InfoReady Review. Learn more or read the RFP.
The FaST program provides faculty with a reduced teaching load during the Spring 2025 semester to focus on the research, scholarship, and creative work interrupted by the pandemic. This program provides funding for faculty to receive either a one-semester, one-course reduction in their teaching load or support for a graduate project assistant (PA) to assist with course-related duties (grading, office hours, preparation of course materials, etc.). Main campus, tenured and tenure-track faculty in all disciplines are eligible to apply.
Important Dates for Spring 2025 FaST:
Learn more about this and other initiatives under the WeR1 Program for Faculty Research Success.
Contact frdo@unm.edu with any questions.
Faculty interested in developing curriculum with Open Educational Resources are invited to submit proposals to receive stipends and other support.
The UNM Libraries is piloting a program that would start in Spring 2024. Faculty need to submit grant applications by Oct. 1, 2023.
The program aims to foster the development of alternatives to high-cost textbooks through the adoption, adaptation, or creation of OERs. Learn more here.
The following information on a new requirement for researchers is from the Office of the Vice President for Research.
“Researchers, the timely submission of grant or contract reports is a mandatory condition for funding, and federal agencies are beginning to crack down on both PIs and institutions that are out of compliance. Currently, UNM has multiple projects with overdue reports to funding agencies.
PIs are responsible for submitting complete and accurate progress reports and final reports within the timeline required by the agency. To ensure UNM meets reporting compliance requirements and that our investigators can continue to access funding, the Office of the Vice President for Research will consider timely completion of progress reports a prerequisite for new funding submissions and for the distribution of F&A allocations to units, effective Oct. 1, 2024. More information.
Although the policy will go into effect on Oct. 1, to assist chairs, deans, and directors in maintaining compliance, a reporting dashboard is available to both PIs and administrators.”
Faculty at UNM have flexibility in how they choose to discuss COVID-19 impacts on their progress in annual reviews. This memo remains in effect and applies to this year’s annual review process. Some of the options include discussing the impact of COVID-19 in research, teaching, and service statements, adding an overall impact statement as a supplementary document, or using a checklist. See an example here, which includes referencing lists of potential impacts; or not discussing it.
A 2020 policy at UNM allows an extension of the tenure clock to acknowledge the significant impact of COVID on research and scholarship. See this document for the policy and frequently asked questions.
CARS offers a wide variety of services to assist faculty, staff, their significant others at UNM including counseling on a wide range of issues such as anxiety, depression, relationship difficulties, stress, job burnout, coworker conflict, eldercare, parenting, alcohol and drug use, grief and loss, managaing change and preparing for retirement. CARS provides other services, such as workshops and training, supervisor and manager workplace consultations, critical incident debriefing and grief intervention and referrals for services within the UNM Community and in the larger communities the client resides in, according to their website.
Find mental health resources for faculty, staff and students at UNM.
Ombuds Services is a “no-barrier, first-stop for UNM employees, their co-workers, and graduate students seeking guidance, information, and insight from a trusted, skilled neutral in a setting that is confidential, independent, and informal.”
The pandemic has dramatically changed how all of us work. Faculty who are juggling teaching, research and more face new challenges, including those that stem from time lost during the height of the pandemic. We know from our Pandemic Impact Report that many of these issues including feelings of burnout and barriers to scholarship still linger and will require ongoing attention. Read our report and see the coverage of it in the Chronicle of Higher Education.
UNM Professor of Medicine Michelle Harkins, MD, testified in January 2024 before the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee. The hearing was on “Addressing Long COVID: Advancing Research and Improving Patient Care.“
The hearing provided a crucial platform for experts like Harkins to contribute insights into the challenges posed by long COVID and discuss potential avenues for advancing research and enhancing patient care, according to the UNM Newsroom.
A research project involving three collaborative research centers at UNM Health Sciences aims to learn the systematic, social, and cultural factors that have led to the inequities in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The team for the project, known as Wide Engagement for Accessing COVID-19 Vaccine Equity (WEAVE NM), includes UNM’s Transdisciplinary Research, Equity and Engagement Center (TREE Center), Center for Participatory Research (CPR), and the Center for Native American Health (CNAH). It is funded by the National Institute of Health’s Community Engagement Alliance (NIH CEAL).
According to the project, “data shows huge disparities, like Latinx and Native communities composing over 60% of COVID-19 related deaths, while the white population only formed 1% of deaths in New Mexico. A similar pattern is reflected in the COVID-19 infection and hospitalization rates of our state. With no immediate end in sight to the COVID-19 pandemic, it is vital to identify systematic, social, and cultural norms that are leading to COVID-19 vaccine inequities and clinical trial participation in our BIPOC communities. Working together with those directly affected will be key to the goal of addressing these life-threatening issues and developing a more equitable health structure in New Mexico.” The project includes community-based participatory research, a community survey and narratives from community members. See the stories and learn more on the project’s website.
Researchers at UNM, Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico State University, University of Kansas, Gorgas Memorial Institute in Panama, and the Center for Research on Health in Latin America are developing a new model for predicting pandemics as part of a $1 million NSF planning grant. Read more in the UNM Newsroom or see the project’s website.
Monica Rosas Lemus, an assistant professor in the Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology is looking at the molecular makeup of COVID-19 in the hopes of finding targets for vaccines. Read more in the UNM Health Sciences Newsroom.
UNM researchers were part of team that published a new study in JAMA detailing the failure of two investigational drugs to treat lung injury resulting from the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Read the story.
See our story from 2020 about Women in STEM at UNM who were working to combat COVID during early parts of the pandemic.
This 2022 news report explores how educators are affected by long COVID.
This 2021 research from the University College Utrecht looks at some ways to continue supporting faculty.
This 2021 report by Northwestern University considered immediate and predictable long-term disruptions in faculty productivity.
This 2020 report by the Chronicle of Higher Ed looks at the impact of the pandemic on faculty, looks at how faculty are responding to the early challenges for faculty well being.
This 2022 data infographic contains stats from a student survey of how faculty are responding to the pandemic.
This 2021 survey at the University of Michigan looked at career trajectory, postponement of tenure review, commitment to academia, and ways to mitigate impacts.
This review of literature looks at key findings including the overlap between COVID and other conditions, the variable onset of symptoms, long COVID in children, and the impact of vaccinations.
This YouTube video series explores a wide variety of COVID research.
This news article looks at how researchers are starting to look more closely at how the disease affects the brain and nervous system.
This in-depth reporting series by Axios News looks at several aspects of long COVID.
This news story looks at how employers are rethinking workforce accommodations amid the presence of long COVID.
The authors of this piece urge that more needs to be done for students with long COVID.