Advancing Next-Gen Faculty Leadership Fellow Program

Academic Affairs offers yearly a faculty-oriented leadership program to advance institutional excellence through fostering a climate of inclusive leadership of diverse leaders, in order to achieve President Eighmy’s goals for the third destination, an exemplar for strategic growth and innovative excellence, in UTSA’s strategic plan. The program is designed specifically to enhance the career development of Fellows by providing an intensive one-on-one training and development experience to promote the next generation of diverse faculty leaders. 

This program is individually tailored to the specific needs of the selected Faculty Fellow, allowing the Fellow to gain knowledge of university operations in specific areas and to advance their leadership skills towards program development, as well as more broadly, across the higher education sector. Through mentorship and shadowing, the Fellow will gain perspective, guidance, and vision in relation to the administrative office(s) that s/he wishes to serve with the ultimate goal of promoting inclusive leadership. Faculty Fellows also will apply their new understanding of leadership principles to their current positions through work on specific projects.

Given UTSA’s leadership in promoting a diverse academic community and Provost Espy's goals in Academic Affairs to accelerate our leadership in this area, candidate Fellows from underrepresented backgrounds are particularly encouraged to seek this leadership opportunity. The Next-Gen Faculty Leadership Fellow Program is administered under the Senior Vice Provost of Academic Affairs and the Faculty Success academic support division.

Objectives

• To learn more about the academic organization, operations, and physical infrastructure
• To consider the skills and attributes of effective academic leaders, and the challenges and rewards of becoming an academic leader
• To consider current and future challenges and opportunities in higher education
• To recognize and implement the values of diversity, inclusion, self-awareness, and ethical leadership
• To meet and develop professional relationships with colleagues through on-campus activities

Outcomes

The overall outcome for this program will be to develop the next generation of university leaders. The Fellow’s outcomes will be the following:

• Acquire an understanding of contemporary issues in higher education in their historical and institutional context
• Engage in emerging topics related to instruction, student learning and innovation
• Advance faculty and their professional, scholarly, and personal development
• Consider the value of building and maintaining a diverse and inclusive university community
• Learn skills for assessing competing priorities and managing time
• Reflect on leadership values, styles, and skills and to consider the range of opportunities in higher education leadership, both formal and informal

Eligibility

• Tenured faculty at the rank of associate or full professor, appointed in any department (associate must show evidence that they are making satisfactory progress toward promotion to professor) or full-time, fixed-term track faculty in the Associate or Professor of Practice, Instruction, Research, or Clinical series.
• Employed as faculty at UTSA for at least three years

Process

Typically, the faculty will be appointed as a Fellow for one academic year. The Faculty Fellow will be expected to spend approximately 10 hours per week in residence in their unit, attending regular meetings of the unit, working with their mentor and completing a special project. In addition, the Faculty Fellow will receive funding to attend an external leadership conference during the appointment and one semester course buy-out.

Projects for AY 2023-2024

The projects are from various Vice President and Vice Provost units on campus. Each unit will provide a unique opportunity for the Faculty Fellow to gain knowledge of university operations and advance their leadership skills across the higher education sector. 

• Academic Affairs: Academic Innovation
  
  We will tailor the Faculty Fellow experience to his/her area of specific interest.  Most recently our Faculty Fellows have been embedded in our Teaching, Learning and Digital Transformation area and have been specifically involved in developing programs to support faculty development and more recently graduate student support.  Fellows are able to develop something of specific interest (Tuesday Teaching Tips) or to learn more about educational tools and their impact on teaching and learning.  One of our underpinning values is to promote innovation and there are multiple ways a Faculty Fellow can engage in this area.  The opening of the Academic Innovation Center also creates opportunities for faculty to use space to inspire creativity and community and the Faculty Fellow will have the opportunity to build the programmatic use of this space.  With the classroom technology project, our focus is also on engaging in future focused learning environments and spaces. In addition, we are increasingly focusing on assessing the impact on both faculty teaching and student learning. The building and growth of the fully online programs also creates opportunities for a Faculty Fellow to engage.  Finally, we also actively partner with Student Success and other areas to specifically draw the link between our work and student success.
• Academic Affairs: Faculty Success
  
  Faculty Success facilitates successful faculty recruitment, transition, retention and leadership through impactful training and development, reliable process support and proactive and transparent communication practices to impact the success of faculty and further the university's mission. Faculty fellows will work on expanding and supporting the faculty mentoring hub, collaborations with Academic Innovation and Research and Economic development to support faculty, and campus climate. 
• Academic Affairs: Strategic Enrollment
  The Faculty Fellow in Strategic Enrollment will have a unique opportunity to gain insight into the world of enrollment management including topics such as 1) 
  strategic enrollment planning and execution 2) building and managing an enrollment funnel 3) using financial aid leveraging strategically to impact enrollment 4) and developing enrollment marketing strategies across the campus.
• Academic Affairs: Student Success
  The Student Success Faculty Fellow will gain administrative experience by working on project ideas that relate to our current student success initiatives. One of the goals is to build a bridge across the efforts taking place in Student Success, Academic Innovation, Undergraduate Studies, and Faculty Success. Some opportunities in support of that goal include:
  • continuing our work with the academic colleges to identify challenge and hurdle courses (using Illume’s Course Insights) followed by identifying best practices and pedagogical strategies to best support faculty teaching these courses and students enrolled in these courses;
  • working within Student Success to plan and pilot a robust, minority males student success initiative to include faculty coaching, peer mentoring, and engagement programming;
  • working with our team and Academic Innovation to continue expanding and enhancing our First-Year Student Experience & Faculty Engagement Mini-Grant program beyond first-year students; and/or
  • contributing to our Hub & Spoke Student Success mission by working with their respective college leadership and Student Success Centers to advance innovative programs and services to provide students with comprehensive resources and equitable opportunities that nurture academic, personal, and career growth as well as identify and promote evidence-based practices to cultivate an inclusive and collaborative ecosystem of support that connects, empowers, and equips students to be lifelong learners and active citizens.
   
• Research, Economic Development and Knowledge Enterprise (VPREDKE)
  REDKE will reimagine its strategic direction parallel to the President’s refresh of the UTSA Strategic Plan. The Next-Gen Faculty Leadership Fellow will work closely with the SVPREDKE to design one or more strategic initiatives to advance UTSA’s research pillars of excellence as part of this institutional process. The Fellowship will provide exposure and experience in the program road mapping process, marketing and communication strategies, and business plan designs for program sustainability.

Application

Nominations by deans and other senior administrators are welcome, as are self-nominations.

The application materials should include the following:

• A 1,000-word statement presenting evidence of interest in academic leadership, experience in academic governance or administration to date, experience working to advance inclusion of underrepresented minorities, and what the nominee hopes to accomplish with the support of the program
• 500-word statement of which project(s) the applicant would be interested in leading as their special project and initial thoughts/ideas for the effort(s).
• Up to 2 letters of recommendation (department chair, dean, center director, etc.). Each recommendation letter is limited to one page in length. 
• A current CV

The 2 letters of reference and CV should be combined and submitted as a single pdf file.

Applications for academic year 2023-24 should be submitted electronically via this application form by April 7, 2023. 

Questions about this program can be directed to Heather Shipley at heather.shipley@utsa.edu.  

Lorenzo Brancaleon
Professor

Department of Physics and Astronomy

College of Sciences

Fellowship placement: Academic Innovation

Makiko Fukuda
Professor of Instruction

Department of Modern Languages and Literatures

College of Liberal and Fine Arts

Fellowship placement: Inclusive Excellence

.

William Land
Associate Professor and Graduate Advisor of Record

Department of Kinesiology

College for Health, Community and Policy

Fellowship placement: The Graduate School

Michael Rushforth
Assistant Chair and Professor of Instruction

Department of Modern Languages and Literatures

College of Liberal and Fine Arts

Fellowship placement: Student Success

Read more about the 2022-2023 Next-Gen Faculty Fellows

2021-2022 Fellows

M. Sidury Christiansen
Associate Professor

Department of Bicultural-Bilingual Studies

College of Education and Human Development

Fellowship placement: Academic Innovation

Teja Guda
Associate Professor

Department of Biomedical Engineering and Chemical Engineering

College of Engineering and Integrated Design

Fellowship placement: Research, Economic Development and Knowledge Enterprise

Antonio Petrov
Associate Professor

School of Architecture

College of Engineering and Integrated Design

Fellowship placement: Westside Community Partnerships

Rebecca Schroeder
Associate Professor of Practice

Academic Inquiry & Scholarship

University College

Fellowship placement: Mutidisciplinary Studies Program

Heather Trepal
Professor

Department of Counseling

College of Education and Human Development

Fellowship placement: The Graduate School

Read more about the 2021-2022 Next-Gen Faculty Fellows

Kim-Kwang Raymond Choo
Cloud Technology Endowed Professor
Department of Information Systems and Cyber Security
College of Business

Fellowship placement: Research, Economic Developmnet & Knowledge Enterprise

"The Next-gen faculty fellowship has been an eye-opening experience and I was really privileged to be under the tutelage of Bernard Arulanandam and Jaclyn Shaw. Although COVID-19 globally impacted many aspects of normal academia, such as travel and international collaboration, including this fellowship, I am grateful that I had the opportunity to engage with stakeholders from Tecnológico de Monterrey, Campus Monterrey (ITESM) and Khalifa University on various research partnerships, which I will be continuing to develop after the fellowship."

Mark Giles
Professor
Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies
College of Education and Human Development

Fellowship placement: Inclusive Excellence

Terri Matiella
Senior Lecturer
Department of Environmental Science and Ecology
College of Sciences

Fellowship placement: Teaching & Learning Services/Academic Innovation

Read more about the 2020-2021 Next-Gen Faculty Fellows

Erica Sosa, 2019-2020
Associate Professor
Department of Kinesiology, Health and Nutrition
College of Education and Human Development

"Being a Next-Gen Faculty Leadership Fellow was pivotal in my development as a leader in higher education. I was able to receive professional development training, learn from university leadership, network with leaders at other Texas academic institutions and actively contribute to university initiatives. I appreciated the opportunity to contribute to UTSA while learning more about how decision-making and priorities are determined. The Fellowship experience contributed to my current role and inspired me to continue to pursue leadership opportunities throughout my academic career."

Read more about the 2019-2020 inaugural Next-Gen Faculty Fellows