September Leadership Council minutes
Visit our website to access the agenda and minutes from the September Leadership Council meeting.
Call for nominations: 2027 Rural Engagement Workshop for Academic Faculty
- Deadline to express interest: Monday, Oct. 19 at noon
Program overview
The UGA Office of the Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost (Provost’s Office) and the Office of the Vice President for Public Service and Outreach (OVPPSO) are pleased to announce the 2027 Rural Engagement Workshop for Academic Faculty, a program designed to build momentum for high-quality, community-engaged research in rural Georgia communities. The program is sponsored by the Provost’s Office and coordinated by OVPPSO, in partnership with UGA Cooperative Extension. Over the last five years, Rural Engagement Workshop alumni have received more than $15.4 million in subsequent funding to conduct community engaged research in rural Georgia.
The workshop will consist of six mandatory, in-person sessions held on Fridays during the 2027 spring semester, including a visit to a rural community to learn from its leaders about effective ways to partner on academic projects, plus two networking events with alumni and Public Service and Outreach/Extension partners. The sessions will provide participants a greater understanding of Georgia’s rural demographics and trends, convey key information on developing sustained relationships with communities, and enhance the ability of faculty to engage in successful research focused on rural areas of the state.
Purpose
The purpose of this program is to strategically apply knowledge and research generated at UGA to empower communities and organizations across Georgia and improve quality of life. Through interactive sessions led by experienced scholars, academic faculty will recognize the benefits of collaborating with faculty in Public Service and Outreach (PSO) and Cooperative Extension to conduct successful community engaged scholarship in rural Georgia.
Eligibility
The workshop series is limited to 20 full-time academic faculty members. Participants in the workshop can come from any UGA college or school and must be nominated by their respective deans. Nominees may have expertise in a variety of research areas, including but not limited to natural resources and the environment, workforce development, public health, poverty, educational achievement, and quality of life.
Nomination and application process
Each dean may nominate up to four applicants from their respective college or school. The UGA deadline for nominations is Monday, Oct. 26. To be considered for nomination, please email Carey Lovelace by noon on Monday, Oct. 19. In the nomination email, please include 3-5 sentences to highlight the following:
- Why the nominee would be a good candidate for the Rural Engagement Faculty Workshop (e.g., the program aligns with the candidate’s background or research interest; the program would help the candidate advance a current research agenda; the candidate would help the college meet a rural engagement goal)
After the nomination process, faculty will be sent a separate link to complete the program application. As part of the application process, nominees will be required to include a one-page proposal for a potential project relevant to rural Georgia. The proposal should include general ideas for collaboration with one or more PSO units and/or Cooperative Extension.
Seed grant
The workshop is designed to help faculty participants develop and hone their collaborative research ideas into a seed grant proposal. At the end of the workshop, each participant is expected to be part of one or more seed grant proposal submissions. Through a competitive review process, the Provost’s Office will provide up to $70,000 to fund a maximum of 10 proposals, ranging from $5,000 to $10,000.
For more information about this unique opportunity and to access the nomination link, please visit the Rural Engagement Faculty Workshop webpage.
Grant opportunity: Atlassian Foundation open call
- Proposal deadline: Friday, Oct. 30
Faculty interested in collaborative approaches to educational equity may wish to explore a new funding opportunity from the Atlassian Foundation. The foundation is seeking proposals from collective action initiatives working to improve educational outcomes for disadvantaged learners in the AI era. Awards of up to $1 million over two years are available.
To be competitive, proposed initiatives must:
- Directly address poverty or disadvantage for a clearly defined beneficiary group
- Demonstrate collective action through collaboration among multiple organizations or stakeholders with shared goals, delivery, and learning
- Focus on helping education evolve in response to emerging technologies, ensuring advances such as AI help close opportunity gaps rather than widen them
While this opportunity may be a challenging fit for some projects due to its specific requirements, the funding level makes it worth consideration for faculty leading large-scale, collaborative efforts in education and access.
The UGA Office of Foundation Relations is available to support proposal development for interested faculty; please contact Matt Pruitt.
Learn more and apply on the open call for proposals webpage.
Apply for the Career Impact Academy by Nov. 20
- Application deadline: Friday, Nov. 20
The Career Impact Academy provides faculty teams across all schools and colleges at the University of Georgia with funding and structured support to develop discipline-specific approaches to strengthening career readiness and career development within students’ academic experiences. Faculty teams of three (full-time, tenure or non-tenure track) from the same college may apply to develop projects or initiatives that strengthen their college or department’s approach to career readiness. These teams commit to move beyond isolated initiatives to sustainable, culture shifting frameworks.
This program is a one-year commitment that includes a one-week intensive experience and four consultation meetings with the UGA Career Center’s Academic Integration team. Faculty teams that are accepted to this program will earn a $7,500 grant that can be used toward summer salary supplements, materials, resources, etc., to implement their project in their respective departments/colleges.
Each team must consist of three faculty (tenure or non-tenure track, full-time/permanent faculty) from the same college. Faculty must plan to work together on this project over the course of a year. All members must commit to attending and/or scheduling all meetings.
MFECOE Halloween Chili Cook-off, Bake-off, and trick-or-treating on Oct. 30
- Date: Friday, Oct. 30
- Time: 11 a.m.-1:30 p.m. (Chili Cook-off and Dessert Bake-off); 3:30-4:30 p.m. (trick-or-treating)
Join us for the MFECOE Staff Chili Cook-off and Dessert Bake-off! Staff, faculty, and building services colleagues are invited to enter a chili or dessert, sample entries, vote for favorites, and enjoy raffle prizes. Costumes are encouraged (workplace appropriate)!
Trick-or-treating will follow from 3:30-4:30 p.m. for the children of our staff, faculty, and building services teams. Departments and suites are encouraged to decorate and provide candy. Trick-or-treaters will begin on the sixth floor and make their way down.
RSVP by Wednesday, Oct. 28 at 5 p.m. to compete, attend, or register your children.
Outreach: Learning by serving
Clinical associate professor Dave Chiesa has no shortage of stories about the service-learning course he developed to support linguistically diverse youth.
There’s the student who returned semester after semester to support the same child’s literacy development, and another who carried what she learned into her Fulbright teaching experiences in Taiwan and Turkey. Yet another student developed an AI-assisted framework to help students learn and practice pragmatics through chat-based interactions, later presenting her work to over 1,000 teachers in Uzbekistan.
While his students’ career paths have branched in different directions, their stories at the University of Georgia all share a common thread: Bay Creek Elementary School in Walton County.
“I have UGA tutors who are from all over the University, and some of them have never taught in their life,” said Chiesa, who teaches in the Department of Language and Literacy Education. “It’s great because through this course, we get to serve people from all over the world. We’re also supporting those who have special needs, including children with autism and dyslexia.”