Community Digest #4

Giving Day: Patriots Helping Patriots 

On Thursday, April 2, the university will be engaged in a giving campaign focused on addressing our students’ COVID-19-related financial needs. While this unprecedented global health crisis continues to unfold, our Mason community is joining together to help all students during this time of unexpected hardship. In this time of uncertainty for so many, when we are experiencing unimaginable personal and professional losses, we recognize that we are each able to contribute in different ways.  
 
CHSS is responding to these needs by creating outreach for our college’s Emergency Scholarship Fund, which will help provide immediate financial assistance for Mason students. All contributions to the CHSS Emergency Scholarship fund during this year will be used in coordination with the University Life Student Emergency Assistance Fund to help provide relief to as many Mason students as possible. 

We encourage the use of sharing this important message in your department and program social communities. CHSS Patriots Helping Patriots images designed for these purposes are available at this OneDrive link.  

Alternative Degree Celebration

We are all upset, especially our students, about degree celebrations and graduation being postponed. We are eager to honor and celebrate our graduating students. And we all want to thank their supporters—family, friends, faculty, and staff--who helped them reach this important accomplishment. 

We want the CHSS community to know that the dean’s office is developing ideas for an alternative degree celebration. It won’t be a “replacement” because graduation here at Mason has been postponed, not canceled. The full plan is yet to be finalized; however, we are moving ahead with one component, a commemorative degree celebration booklet. It will feature all of our CHSS student award recipients, as well highlight CHSS faculty who have received teaching awards. The booklet will be shared online and the awardees will also be featured on CHSS social media channels. 

In addition, the central team plans to send a survey to all graduating students this week to seek their input into what they would like to see happen. So, more to come, but please do submit your awards as usual, per the item below, and share your thoughts and ideas on an alternative degree celebration with Felicia Carr, at fcarr2@gmu.edu. 

Submit Student Award Winners 

Friday, March 27, had been the date by which we asked departments and programs to share the names of students who will be receiving academic awards this spring.

With the disruption caused by the spread of COVID-19 and the postponement of the university's commencement and degree celebration ceremonies, it is the hope of the dean's office that an alternative recognition of the college's 2020 graduates might be possible. For this reason (and because we want to have a record of our students receiving awards -- many of which are funded by the generosity of CHSS donors), we still ask that you submit the names of the award winners. If you have that information by Friday, April 3, please submit it then. (Here is a quick refresher on how to use the easy-to-use, simple CHSSWeb app.) 

If you do not have the information by that time, please contact Anne Reynolds and we will figure out an alternative. As a side note, please make sure to direct any emails to "areyno12" -- there is another Anne Reynolds working in the College of Science who graciously redirects email, but Anne in CHSS would rather hear from you directly. Thank you for your patience with this very fluid situation.

Visiting Filmmakers Series Goes Virtual

Starting April 1, the Visiting Filmmakers Series is moving online. Sessions are scheduled throughout the month, all hosted by the tireless Film at Mason faculty and some featuring faculty as speakers.  

Guests include Jennifer Baichwal (director of Anthropocene: The Human Epoch), Doug Spearman (conducting a Masterclass in Directing), Erica Ginsberg (cofounder of Docs in Progress and author of "Creative Resilience in a Time of Pandemic"), and Sacha Jenkins (director of the Showtime documentary series, Wu Tang: Of Mics & Men), as well as film programmers, screenwriters, producers, editors, photographers, and a production designer.

Please make use of these sessions as content for your online classes: we encourage student participation. Each session will be recorded for people to view them asynchronously.  As always, the series is free and open to the public: please help us spread the word.  

View the full list of Visiting Filmmakers Series Online events here. 

Mentor Fellows – Deadline Extended to April 7th

Faculty Affairs and Development seeks Distinguished Mentoring Fellows who are established and respected scholars and researchers, recognized mentors of students or faculty in their discipline, highly regarded teachers, willing to learn and share, and who can speak to Mason’s values and mission. Because of the diverse composition of the Faculty Mentoring Communities, we are also looking for individuals who are comfortable facilitating and working with individuals across disciplines. Both past and current Distinguished Mentoring Fellows have shared they have found participating in the program a rewarding experience.    
 
The commitment for the program is three semesters and there are approximately five meetings of the Faculty Mentoring Communities each semester. Additional planning sessions occur to ensure continuity and provide support. There is a modest stipend provided to the Distinguished Mentoring Fellows for their leadership and participation. More information about the program is located on the Mason faculty portal at faculty.gmu.edu. Applicants should be tenured faculty.   
 
If you are interested in becoming a Distinguished Mentoring Fellow, please submit the following information to facaffs@gmu.edu by Tuesday, April 7, 2020:  

A mentoring statement (no more than two pages) to include: 

• Your name and discipline; 

• A description of any relevant experience you have with mentoring faculty; 

• Information about your experiences collaborating with other faculty in multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary work (research/scholarship, teaching, or other); and 

• A brief statement about your beliefs about what makes a good mentor and why you think you would be a good mentor. 

Submit any questions to facaffs@gmu.edu.

Mail Services Update  

For those who may be expecting important items via postal mail, Mail Services has provided the following information:  

• Fairfax Campus: There will be no regular mail delivery until normal operations resume. The Mail Services front counter will be open for pick up Monday - Friday, 10 a.m. - 2 p.m. (The Hub mailroom will be closed on weekends).  

• Arlington and SciTech Campuses: Interoffice mail delivery service will be on Tuesdays and Fridays. There will be no regular mail delivery until normal operations resume.  

• Essential Departments: Mail delivery to essential departments will continue per usual schedule.  

• Other Departments: Can pick up their mail and packages at Mail Services in The Hub, Monday - Friday 10 a.m. – 2 p.m.  

Instructional Guidelines & Support 

Online Dissertation Defense Tips Published 

The CHSS communications team has published another article in the blog: “Five Tips for a Successful Virtual Defense.” For students who are faced with defending their dissertation or thesis virtually, this resource provides guidance and suggestions for preparations, with contributions from Professor Zach Schrag in History and Dr. Carrie Klein, who was one of CHSS’s first virtual defendants this semester. Please share with those students who are preparing to defend! 

FERPA and Virtual Learning  

U.S. Department of Education has just released guidance on maintaining student FERPA rights in a virtual learning environment. Please visit the new website.

CHSS Instructional Designer  

CHSS has an assigned Blackboard instructional designer, Larisa A. Olesova. Instructional designers are available to help consult and implement online tools and/or resources, identify alternative assessment ideas, address specific instructional challenges, and - most importantly - make recommendations for learning experiences that meet course needs.    If you would like a consultation, please usethe ID intake form.

Teaching Buddies 

In anticipation of potential illness and to allow for maximum coverage of all courses, we are recommending that faculty consider adding a back-up instructor, a teaching buddy, to each course’s Blackboard site. ITS has a step-by-step guide of how to add another instructor.   

ITS is offering many webinars and technology support as well as other services.

NCFDD 

As an institutional member of National Center Faculty Development and Diversity, Mason faculty have access to several resources on faculty well-being during this time. Resources are available here.