March 10, 2023

Summary

Good evening from Ewell! Outside I hear the sound of something breaking, and I think it’s spring. Spring has inspired the following thoughts: “The earth laughs in flowers” (Ralph Waldo Emerson); “Spring is the time of plans and projects” (Leo Tolstoy); “If we had no winter, spring would not be so pleasant” (Ann Bradstreet); “Once I was a sentimental thing. Threw my heart away every spring” (Ella Fitzgerald); and my favorite, “There’s so much spring in the air – there’s so much lazy sweetness in your heart” (F. Scott Fitzgerald). So welcome to a week of lazy sweetness, during which I hope plans and projects can take a back seat to sentiment, flowers and laughter, and winter should be remembered only in a spirit of wistful gratitude.

Full Description

Dear faculty and staff,

Of course, I know none of you is actually going to experience much lazy sweetness, but I wanted to include this phrase because it’s on a par with some of those paint names I mentioned the other week (here’s another one for spring – Forward Fuchsia). Seriously though, this has been a really busy semester and I know many of you are feeling the strain. I hope you will be able to treat yourselves to a little bit of lazy sweetness. After last week’s marathon, I will keep this week’s message short.

Teaching in-person Just a little reminder for you to ponder on during the season of lazy sweetness. I am so grateful for all the grace and creativity you bring to your classrooms and student mentoring, even when you’re tired or feeling cranky. I also know how many reasons there are to wish you could teach from home: you forgot to do the laundry, you’re still hungry, your dog just ate lots of chocolate and is suffering the ill effects (an experience I had yesterday), your car broke down…. But we have promised our students an in-person experience and that’s what they want, need and deserve. All teaching should be in person this semester, unless you have an accommodation approved by HR to teach remotely for health reasons. Obviously, if you have Covid or another infectious illness, you should not come to work (follow CDC guidelines). If you feel well enough, feel free to teach remotely; but also be gentle with yourself. Or perhaps you’re at a conference and teaching remotely seems like a good way to avoid cancelling a class or asking a colleague to teach it for you. But please don’t make a habit of remote teaching, however tempting it is.

Graduate and Honors Research Symposium I know there are lots of really exciting events going on around A&S, and we are really happy to receive information about them, and invitations to them. I’ve made an executive decision not to include events information in my Friday messages because there are just so many of them, and I worry I might miss some out. The exception is for events organized out of and sponsored by the A&S team. To that end, I would like to invite you all to the the upcoming Graduate & Honors Research Symposium, March 30-31 (Th-Fri) in the Sadler Center. What was for 19 years the Graduate Research Symposium, has now become the Graduate & Honors Research Symposium. This collaborative effort between the A&S Graduate Center and Charles Center seeks to foster greater interdisciplinary intellectual exchange and community among graduate and honors researchers in A&S. The Symposium will also include graduate students from VIMS and other universities around the region including UVA, ODU, and VCU. We are excited to bring this important event back to campus after its pandemic hiatus. As you know, it’s an essential opportunity for our students to showcase their research, practice their conference skills, and celebrate their accomplishments. Furthermore, this event is a singular opportunity to raise visibility of the remarkable research taking place across A&S, as well as the collaborative work between students and faculty happening day-to-day.

ToR Faculty Framework Implementation Update Finally – and our NTE colleagues have already received a message on this topic – there’s progress on the ToR Faculty Framework. As you know, this was approved with a 95% positive vote of the faculty of A&S on Feb. 13th, and approved by the Personnel Policies Committee the next day. The PPC is advisory to the Provost and President, and unfortunately the President had just left for a three-week trip, so there was an unavoidable delay in getting to final approval. Thank you all for your patience – I know it was a frustrating time. The good news is that I am meeting with the Provost and President on March 17th, and – assuming they approve, which I expect will happen – we should be able to send out notifications of new placements early the following week. The notification will contain all the language about appeals, etc, that appears in the framework. New contracts will be issued by the end of the spring semester or very shortly afterwards. In the unlikely event that the new framework is not approved or that there is further delay, everyone with a contract ending after May 2023 will continue to be employed under the terms of the current contracts. Senior Lecturers will simply continue in their positions as they have been doing.

Now, go and throw your hearts away.

Take care, Suzanne

Suzanne Raitt

Acting Dean of the Faculty of Arts & Sciences

Chancellor Professor of English

Pronouns: she/her/hers