College Update – February 2023

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Chairs and Professorships | Coming Soon: New Event Registration System | Office Hours

Newsletter Table of Contents
  1. Dean's Open Office Hours
  2. Faculty Affairs
  3. Academic Affairs
  4. Inclusive Excellence
  5. Student Success and Development
  6. Student Recruitment
  7. Professional Development
  8. Employee Wellness
  9. Our Mission in Action
  10. Survey
  11. Newsletter archive

Dean’s Open Office Hours

Dr. Jeffrey Savell and Dr. Patricia Klein are continuing to host Dean’s Open Office Hours. Sign up for a time and day, and contact Kelsey Agnew if you have any questions.

Faculty Affairs

Upcoming Awards Deadlines

Chairs and Professorships

  • Please visit the chairs and professorships website for more information on how to apply for the following competitions.
    • Barbara J. and William M. “Bill” Huffman ’53 Chair in Poultry Science
    • Burkhart Professorship for Beef Cattle Research
    • Love, Tito’s Endowed Professorship in Responsive Agriculture
    • Stiles Professor of Agriculture
    • Thomas M. O’Connor Professorship in Range Science

Promotion and Tenure

  • Weekly P&T Zoom Hour with Candidates, Wednesdays 3-4 p.m., via Zoom.
  • P&T Chair and Administrator Dossier Preparation Workshop, Friday, March 31, 1-3 p.m., via Zoom.
  • Staff Dossier Preparation Workshop, Wednesday, April 5, 10 a.m.-noon, via Zoom.

Other Faculty Affairs News

  • Royce Stengele has taken a position at Texas A&M University Faculty Affairs. We wish him the very best and look forward to working with him in his new role. The Dean’s Office will be hiring a program manager to fill Royce’s previous position. Know someone who would be great for the job? They can apply here.

Academic Affairs

  • Student Research Week, the largest student-run research symposium in the nation, will be held Monday-Thursday, March 20-23. For more information, go to https://srw.tamu.edu.
  • University Libraries are holding workshops on research citations, data management and other tools. Go to the libraries events page for the full schedule.
  • Dr. Jenna Kurten has accepted the position of Assistant Dean for Student Success. Taking over the role of program manager for data and analytics is Ms. Liu Shi. Ms. Shi has over twenty years of accomplishment in data analysis and enrollment research in higher education, at Texas A&M University and Penn State University. We are thrilled to have her in this position!
  • Posting of syllabi: To comply with state law requiring online posting, upload your syllabus as a PDF in the publicly accessible Howdy portal. Posting a syllabus in Canvas or another website that requires Texas A&M University login does not comply with the state law.

Coming soon: New event registration system

Texas A&M AgriLife Digital Education is excited to announce the selection of a new event registration system, Stova. Stova brings new and improved features to event organizers as well as registrants to enhance the user experience for everyone involved. Rosters, emails and payment processes are all being addressed.

AgriLife Digital Education and partners are actively working on building functionality for the new system. They anticipate opening testing in March with a launch date in mid-April.

Closer to user acceptance testing and preparing to go live, the team will send out more information, including instructions on how you can assist with testing. If you have any questions, please email learnonline@ag.tamu.edu.

Graduate Programs

  • College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Graduate Excellence Fellowship nominations are being accepted online.
  • Graduate Mentoring Academy: Click here for information on a mentoring competency workshop being offered Thursday, Feb. 23.  
  • 18th Texas A&M University System Pathways Student Research Symposium, Thursday, March 2 and Friday, March 3, Texas A&M University-Galveston.
  • Innovation Cup Summer Camp is a professional development opportunity for graduate students in natural sciences, computer sciences and business administration who are interested in the pharmaceutical and chemical industry. For more information, click here.
  • Graduate Student Travel: Need additional funding support for travel for conferences or research? Check out the RAP Travel Award.
  • Graduate Community of Scholars Dinner and Dialogue, Tuesday, March 21. For more information, click here.
  • Graduate Student Well-Being
    • Texas A&M Counseling and Psychological Services, CAPS, is offering events focused on mental health for graduate and professional students. Click here for the schedule. 
    • Dr. Esther Wright at CAPS is trained in graduate student issues and concerns. Graduate and professional students may make appointments with Dr. Wright via the CAPS appointment portal system.

Inclusive Excellence

Know an underrepresented minority undergraduate in a STEM major who is interested in research? The LSAMP Scholar, Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation, program is accepting students by application. 

Student Success and Development

  • First Year Experience Instructor positions are now available for AGLS 125 courses being taught in Fall 2023. We encourage faculty and staff to consider serving as an instructor. This is a great way to connect with incoming students and prepare them for success during college. As an extra incentive, instructors receive a $500 bursary that may be used for professional development and peer mentors receive a $500 stipend through financial aid.

Student Recruitment

  • Prospective Student Information Sessions occur weekly on Fridays. Students can register for a visit with a recruiter at https://recruiter.tamu.edu/.
  • College Virtual Sessions are being held at 6-7 p.m. on the third Wednesday of each month for students to learn more about how our degrees help them achieve their personal goals. If you would like to join these sessions to represent your department, please contact Ahmir Nichols at ahmir.nichols@ag.tamu.edu.

Professional Development

Employee Wellness

Our Mission in Action

Here are three faculty and staff members who have embodied the Aggie Core Values and demonstrated their immense dedication to advancing the mission of the College in teaching, research and service. Have a colleague in mind we should feature? Email us at aglifesciences@ag.tamu.edu to nominate someone.

Teaching

Dr. Donna Lee Sullins, instructional assistant professor in the Department of Recreation, Parks and Tourism Sciences, led a study abroad trip to the 2022 Qatar FIFA World Cup. This has provided students with professional experience at one of the world’s biggest events. Her nominators wrote: “This is a once-in-a-lifetime student experience and we appreciate Dr. Sullins’ leadership!” 

Research

Dr. Michelle Lawing, a quantitative ecologist and associate professor in the Department of Ecology and Conservation Biology, contributed to and co-edited a special feature titled “The past as a lens for biodiversity conservation on a dynamically changing planet” in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The issue focuses on research approaches to understand how ecosystems and communities respond to large-scale environmental changes. 

Service

Karen Lepley, manager of the master’s of agribusiness program in the Department of Agricultural Economics, helped significantly with planning, fundraising and promotions related to celebrations of her department’s 100th anniversary and the 25th anniversary of the Master’s of Agribusiness program.  

Survey

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Newsletter archive

Review previous months’ newsletters.