College Dean's Message

Greetings all,

This past month has been spent absorbing and supporting the creation and implementation of a variety of strategic initiatives on campus. I would like to use this newsletter as a way to share everything that we are working on and let you know about the various initiatives that should be of interest to you as we enter a new year focused on making our college and institution stronger and more strategically aligned. 

We started the month still working through the launch of SHAPE and Forward with Purpose (our university and our research and innovation strategic plan). We added to these by discussing SEAP (Student Experience Action Plan), which is aimed to improve the student experience on campus. A more formal launch is scheduled for early next year. I was also involved in the Centres and Institutes Task Force recommendations, which have been presented to the Dean's council and is working its way through numerous different groups for consultation.

On top of these major initiatives on campus, I also sit on the Integrated Enrolment Growth Steering Committee. This committee has as a goal: creating principles and norms to guide how we support SHAPE’s ambitious goal of 60,000 students. In addition to the enrolment growth steering committee, I also am a part of the People Strategy Committee. This committee was formed out of the Employee Engagement results and is designed to support meaningful action plans with regards to employee engagement. 

As a part of Budget model 2.0, two committees were created. One is focused on Faculty Cost Cluster (or FCC), which is a way of accounting for the differential constraints placed on teaching depending on the major and faculty. The other is the space committee, which has been formed to determine best practices with respect to space utilization and optimization on campus. As college dean, I sit on the FCC committee and will be chairing the space utilization and optimization committee.

I am one of the co-chairs of the United Way Committee (with the other college deans and Peggy Garritty, our chancellor).  I have always had a connection with United Way. Starting with my time working at Procter and Gamble (a major supporter of United Way in the US) to my time seeing the results first hand working with youth in Lubbock, Texas (during my time at Texas Tech), to my support of Coats for Kids (who receives funds from United Way in Edmonton). Because of this, when I was given the chance to co-chair, I gladly accepted. United Way Campaign emails should be making their way to you and I hope you will make a donation – any amount helps.

Lastly, over the next few months, all researchers and professors will be contacted by a member of our college communications team to inform you about an initiative I’m particularly excited about! We know the strength of our research is world-class in our college, and we want to work together to ensure your Find a Person directory biography is laid out in a consistent and impactful manner so that we can highlight and showcase each researcher’s biography and research focus. This will not only allow us to present a consistent presence across the university, but will also help those researchers who have yet to fill out their directory information. As this is a large undertaking, I appreciate your kindness and cooperation as we connect with each of you.

There will be no newsletter for December as I will be taking a break to catch up on some of my research projects (to one of my many co-authors, I apologize for the delay in the hold up with our projects). So let me take this time to wish you peace, rest, joy, health and anything else you desire for 2024!

Best regards,

Marvin

College Updates

Collaborative College Community Initiative

The College of Social Sciences and Humanities, and the Faculty of Arts are pleased to support the Collaborative College Community Initiative, also known as C3I. This two-year initiative aims to commemorate and build on the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights through activities and new opportunities for engagement involving faculty, staff, students at all levels in Arts, Business, Education and Law along with the wider community.

In February 2024 there will be a dedicated C3I Day during International Week 2024 (I-Week runs February 5-9).  The C3I Day will provide opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students, faculty and staff across the College of Social Sciences and Humanities to showcase work and ideas and engage with the larger community.  The C3I Day will also offer new one-time financial awards for current U of A students to support their studies.

Stay tuned for more updates on this initiative!

Office of Research

Site Updates

The Office of Research has recently made some exciting changes to its website, providing more tools and resources for members of our college. Please take some time to check out these updates here.

Internal Peer Review for Insight Development Grant Applications

The Office of Research offers an internal, pre-submission, peer review service for academic faculty members applying for SSHRC grants, including the upcoming Insight Development Grant competition. Participation is voluntary, but past experience suggests that pre-submission feedback from an insightful reader helps greatly to improve an applicant's chance of competition success. 

If you’d like an experienced peer reviewer to provide feedback on your Insight Development Grant application, please register here before December 5. Deadlines apply to ensure time for matching applicants with senior faculty colleagues. You will need to have a high-quality, penultimate version of the application, formatted as a single PDF, by January 4, 2024. Visit the Office of Research website for more information and deadlines.

College News

Are you keeping up with the latest college news? Please visit our College News and Notices page as we highlight some of the amazing people, research and success stories in our college.