If you are a CU Denver Lecturer, Instructor, or Clinical Teaching Faculty, then you are one of us!
To get in contact with a UCDALI liason from your school or college, visit our Bridge Network list: Bridge Network For more information visit: UCDALI Webpage
Open Meeting
Please come and join us for our next UCDALI meeting. We will be holding an open meeting on November 19th from 12:00 - 1:30. The zoom link for the meeting is: https://ucdenver.zoom.us/j/98170807834
Dear Colleagues,
You play a very important role in helping further our students’ success. I appreciate the unique insights and experiences you bring to our students as part of their educational journey.
I also heard loud and clear over the last year that we need to do more to support you. One top-level goal of our 2030 strategic plan is to be a people-centered best place to work. This includes ensuring that all our faculty — including lecturers and instructional, research, and clinical faculty — feel supported in your efforts to bring the highest levels of rigor, learning, and inspiration to our students.
You said it was critical that we take real steps to value our employees as people, create a culture of empowerment and belonging, and provide tangible opportunities for career development and success. We’re listening, and we’re acting.
I’m thrilled that Provost Nakuma has charged a task force with developing recommendations to improve the lecturer and IRC faculty experience. We expect their report to be delivered in November. In addition, this year our campus for the first time has dedicated space for instructors and lecturers in our new City Heights Learning Commons. Finally, we’re in the process of hiring a CU Denver-specific Chief People Officer, our first ever, who will lead our work to create an organizational culture focused on trust, empowerment, and collaboration.
It’s clear to me that our greatest asset is our people – including you. Thank you for your continued contributions to CU Denver and to our remarkable students.
A hardy “Cheers” to all of you for persevering through the past year and a half of pivots, transitions, new approaches and challenges. We have all given the best of ourselves to keep doing what we do best, which is to help our students learn and succeed, and to support them as they continue their educational journeys during this difficult time. It's been hard for everyone, and I know a lot of us are downright exhausted. But know this: important work is still being done on your behalf. We've shared what we've learned from all of you with campus leadership, and they are responding.
Our new Provost, Constancio Nakuma, joined CU Denver this Fall. Already, he has committed to supporting our Lecturer, Instructor, Senior Instructor and Clinical Teaching Track faculty by convening a task force to explore the challenges we face. He has charged the IRC and Lecturer Task Force with developing a report and presenting him with a set of recommendations about how to improve the experience of our IRC and Lecturer faculty by the end of this Fall semester. For more information visit the task force website.
Several of the UCDALI Executive Committee members and I are serving on this task force, but we need your voice to be included in these discussions. You'll be getting notice of a survey from this group early in November. It is imperative that your stories and your experience are included in these deliberations. Do not let this chance to be heard go unheeded.
We hope to see you in-person in our new space on the 3rd Floor of the new City Heights building for the Tips-n-Treats event October 29th. But if you can't make that, do stop into the space anytime to work, to visit, for a cup of coffee, or just to see it. It is lovely.
Finally, please plan to attend (via Zoom) our open UCDALI meeting this November. We will update you on the task force proceedings there and share the rest of the work we have been doing on your behalf. Just as importantly, though, we want to hear from you, so please join us if you can.
Best regards,
Vivian
“Heavy Lifters of the University”: Non-Tenure Track Faculty Teaching Required Diversity Courses. (2020) Miller, Ryan A., and Laura E. Struve. Innovative Higher Education, 45(6), 437–455.
“Non-tenure track faculty members’ experiences teaching required diversity courses while navigating their precarious employment status has not been sufficiently explored. Addressing this need, the present study examined the experiences of non-tenure track instructors teaching diversity courses as part of general education programs at five colleges and how they understood their relationships to the diversity course requirement and the institution. Instructors perceived themselves as institutional “heavy lifters,” yet emphasized that their precarious status left them disconnected from the diversity requirement and the larger campus.” Read more at
“The Adjunct Problem Is a Data Problem.” By Jeremy C. Young & Robert B. Townsend. In The Chronicle of Higher Education, August 30, 2021.
After five decades of concern about the swelling ranks, low pay, and exploitation of non-tenure-track faculty members, it may seem obtuse to suggest that we still need better data about these instructors. But the reality is: To advocate effectively on their behalf, we need much better data. Read more
