New support for faculty gatherings: Connection and Collaboration Dinners

Wednesday, June 1, 2022

To: FAS and SEAS ladder and full-time, multi-year instructional faculty
Cc: FAS Dean’s Office, FAS Steering, FAS and SEAS Chair’s Assistants, Operations Managers, and Lead Administrators

[Summary: This message announces Connection and Collaboration Dinners, a new initiative for summer and fall 2022 designed to foster scholarly community. The program will provide support for dinners or lunches for groups of faculty to convene and discuss new avenues in research in teaching. FAS and SEAS faculty may submit proposals using the online form.]

Dear colleagues:

We are delighted to announce Connection and Collaboration Dinners, a new program intended to foster faculty collaboration across departments and divisions, and to rebuild community in the FAS and SEAS in the wake of the period of reduced interactions necessitated by the pandemic.

The goal of this program is simple: it aims to encourage FAS and SEAS faculty to reconnect with colleagues, meet new ones, and develop networks that might lead to new avenues in teaching and research. To facilitate this, the FAS Dean’s Office will provide funds to support dinners or lunches for groups of approximately 4-8 faculty, representing two or more FAS or SEAS departments.

Discussion at these gatherings may be as formal or as informal as you like: they might take the form of a salon or focused discussions of ideas and projects; or they may simply be informal gatherings to have conversations about an area of shared interest. As you formulate proposals, we encourage you to reach out to colleagues from across the FAS and SEAS and to consider using this opportunity to meet fellow faculty members who you may not yet have met in person. Our hope is that these gatherings will lead to new research and teaching collaborations.

Logistics

  • Gatherings may take place at any time in summer or fall 2022 and requests will be considered on a rolling basis.
  • Requests should take the form of a 1-paragraph description of the proposed gathering, with a provisional list of participants and a theme or area of common interest that will be the focus of the event.
  • Requests must be submitted a minimum of two weeks in advance of the proposed event date to allow sufficient time for the approval process.
  • You may submit your request using the online application form.
  • For each event, one faculty member must serve as the main point of contact for the FAS Dean’s Office, and should submit the request on behalf of the group. This individual will be responsible for submitting receipts for reimbursement to their business office.
  • Each faculty member may submit a maximum of one request in the summer and one in the fall, and priority will be given to groups that are substantially different from those that have previously been supported under this program.
  • The FAS Dean’s Office will provide a maximum of $50 per person, or up to $1000, whichever amount is lower.
  • Groups must include 4 or more ladder or full-time, multi-year, instructional faculty members, representing at least two FAS and SEAS departments. Groups of faculty representing at least two FAS Divisions or SEAS will receive highest priority.
  • There is no maximum group size; however, the maximum amount of funding is $1000 per event.
  • As a condition on accepting funds, participants will be asked to confirm their willingness to provide brief testimonials, short reports on projects that emerge from the gathering, or survey responses. Following your event, the FAS Dean’s Office may reach out to request this information. This feedback enables us to continue offering such programs to faculty by allowing us to provide updates to our generous supporters.

If you have questions about this program, please reach out to Peter Schiffer, Director for Strategic Projects in the FAS Dean’s Office, at peter.schiffer@yale.edu.

We hope you will consider taking part, and we encourage you to be creative and expansive as you envision how you might use this opportunity. We look forward to reading your proposals!

Warmly,

Tamar

Tamar Szabó Gendler
Dean, Faculty of Arts and Sciences
Vincent J. Scully Professor of Psychology
Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Science