Advice
Welcome to SDSU. I highly recommend that as faculty, you find out more about your roles so that you can obtain P & T without issues later on. For my advice, I would like to focus specifically on your teaching role.Talk with your colleagues and department head. What are your responsibilities? What are the course objectives for each of your courses? What are the students supposed to do or know after leaving each class? How does this class relate to the major, the program, the department, the college, and the university? What resources should or could I utilize on campus including CETL, IDS, Assessment and Evaluation Office, the Diversity and Inclusion Office, Disabilities Office, and beyond?Break the ice and go beyond the traditional lecture-based course. What active learning strategies could you introduce? How can you get your students to engage with the course material? How do your students learn best? What questions do they have about this topic, what do they know, and how can you help them better understand the material through the use of engaging activities? How will you assess their learning? How will you assess your teaching?Ask questions. Balance your time, your effort, and your talents to the best of your ability. And most of all, enjoy being a part of this university and this community. Brookings and SDSU has so much to offer, not only for adults but for children and families as well.Mary Bowne - Associate Professor, Teaching, Learning and Leadership
While here at South Dakota State University, I have found the campus resources to be extremely helpful in advancing my career, specifically the internal research funding mechanisms and the CETL workshops. During my first year, I applied for both the Scholarly Excellence Fund and the Research Scholarship Support and was awarded funds for two projects. This was extremely helpful as I now have the preliminary data needed to apply for larger grants. I also participated in the DC Boot Camp Program, which is a semester long program that prepares faculty members to travel to Washington DC to meet with potential funders from government agencies such as National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, and United States Department of Agriculture. As a part of this program I was able to successfully develop relationships with program officers from the National Institutes of Health and the North American Meat Institute.
During my first year, I also found the workshops through the Center for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning to be great for helping me to enhance my teaching practices. Last year I participated in several workshops, including the Strengths Based Teaching CETL Faculty Inquiry Group (FIG). This FIG teaches faculty members how to use their strengths in the classroom to enhance their teaching abilities. It was an eye-opening and very insightful program. Participating in the CETL workshops also allows for you to meet other faculty and staff across campus and gain their insights regarding the best teaching practices.
Cydne A. Perry, Ph.D. - Assistant Professor, Department of Health & Nutritional Sciences
Faculty member Stephen Gent speaks on the Observation Program.
· SDSU is a land-grant university and each faculty is expected to demonstrate successes in each of the three areas: teaching & advising, research and service. Balancing the roles, and time management could become challenging if they were not structured strategically. There are endless service opportunities at SDSU, so take service activities as they fit and support your career goals.
· University faculty standards are important frameworks in shaping your efforts and accomplishments. Reading these documents early help you prepare both faculty annual report (FAR) and then your promotion and tenure documents.
· Third year review report is important for preparing your tenure and promotion document. Please spend good chunk of time writing your 3rd year review report. This will provide you a clear picture of what your dossier would look like, and from that time onward you just keep updating things every year for your P and T dossier.
Madhav Nepal, Ph.D - Associate Professor, Department of Biology and Microbiology
Find time for your research.
Find time for yourself.
Don't be afraid to ask.
Jamie Spinney - Assistant Professor, Geography