When she saw the 99% success rate for a summer program promising to help faculty improve writing productivity, Tamika Smith, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Health Behavior, decided to give it a try. The 12-week program "was an amazing experience," she said.Tamika Smith, Ph.D., was hesitant. A colleague who had been through the Faculty Success Program put on by the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity recommended that Smith take part in the 12-week summer program. The program promises to help faculty of all ranks improve their research productivity, work-life balance and personal growth through empirically tested methods. And if she was selected to receive one of the grants offered by UAB’s Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, attendance was free.
Still, “I thought, ‘I don’t need anything else on my plate,’” recalled Smith, an assistant professor in the Department of Health Behavior in the School of Public Health. “But when I looked into it and saw that it had a 99 percent success rate, I was impressed. So I said, ‘Let’s see about this.’”
“In the cohort I participated in, we all agreed how wonderful this program was. The first half focused on writing productivity, and the second half focused on self-care, which I enjoyed because most academic programs don’t even touch on this. It is amazing the difference that it has made.”
— Tamika Smith, Ph.D., assistant professor, Department of Health Behavior
Smith’s verdict? “It was an amazing experience,” she said. “In the cohort I participated in, we all agreed how wonderful this program was. The first half focused on writing productivity, and the second half focused on self-care, which I enjoyed because most academic programs don’t even touch on this. It is amazing the difference that it has made. My writing projects were weighing me down before, but now I know how to make time for them — and make consistent progress.”
Smith also continues to meet with one of the members of her cohort to hold each other accountable to their goals. “When you listen to the first lecture, they kept talking about accountability,” Smith said. “You think to yourself, ‘What are they going to do to us if we don’t produce?’ But then you see how the accountability that is built into the program is so helpful to reaching where you want to be with your writing goals.”
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Top resources, by registrations, for UAB members in 2020, according to the NCFDD survey:
Core Curriculum offerings:
- How to Align Your Time with Your Priorities
- Every Semester Needs a Plan
- Overcoming Academic Perfectionism
Guest Expert Webinars:
- Resting to Rise: Reduce Burn Out, Find Your Joy for Writing and Life, and Create a Just Academia
- Women’s Brain Health at Midlife: What Does Menopause Have to Do With It?
- How to Manage Chronic Illness and Academic Life
Multi-Week Courses:
- Preparing Tenure and Promotion Materials
- From Project to Publication — The Art of Manuscript Revision
Access NCFDD courses, webinars and other resources at uab.edu/dei/about/faculty-resources.
100 percent success rate at UAB
Smith’s experience is echoed by the other 20 UAB faculty members who have completed the Faculty Success Program since the university became an institutional member of the NCFDD in 2017. In an NCFDD-sponsored survey released earlier this year, 100 percent of UAB respondents said the Faculty Success Program had improved their writing productivity, and 95 percent reported better work-life balance.
“The point of this program was to moderate everything. There was a lot of emphasis on planning ahead, creating long-term, short-term and mid-term goals, so when you have time, you are not surprised by it and at a loss for what to do with yourself. We were encouraged to do small blocks of regular writing to keep it part of our daily lives.”
— Marliese Thomas, assistant professor and fine arts librarian, UAB Libraries
The NCFDD provides career development and mentoring resources for faculty at more than 450 colleges and universities. More than 475 faculty, postdocs and graduate students at UAB have taken advantage of the university’s institutional membership, according to the survey. Membership includes access to the NCFDD’s Core Curriculum webinars, focused on skills necessary to “thrive in the academy”; interactive, online Guest Expert Webinars; multi-week courses on preparing tenure and promotion materials and manuscript revision; and 14-day writing challenges. In 2020, 39 UAB registrants wrote for 7,028 minutes as part of these challenges, which use special software to encourage participants to write for at least 30 minutes each day over the fortnight.
“We are pleased so many faculty members are utilizing the NCFDD resources and that tools are effective in helping participants find a healthy balance between their on-campus productivity and their prioritization of personal well-being,” said Pam Benoit, Ph.D., UAB’s senior vice president for Academic Affairs and provost. “This initial feedback from NCFDD participants is encouraging, and we look forward to even more faculty participating in the future.”
Identifying barriers ‘keeping you from doing what you want to do’
Marliese Thomas, assistant professor and fine arts librarian for UAB Libraries, has returned to academia after spending several years working for a software company that produces digital tools for libraries. “When I returned to a faculty position, I was really starting from scratch as far as my research program,” Thomas said. So, when she saw an announcement in the eReporter about the Summer Success Program, it immediately caught her attention. “Writing is something that I have struggled to be doing consistently,” Thomas said.
“I appreciated the holistic view that the program takes,” Thomas said. “It was not completely focused on writing skills but in understanding what is going on in your life that is keeping you from sitting down and writing — the barriers that are keeping you from doing what you want to do.”
One of those barriers is the tendency of many of us to “focus on the really big project due right now,” Thomas said. “We go all-in and then say, ‘When the semester is over, I can rebalance.’ But then another emergency — work or personal — comes up, and you end up being this pendulum swinging back and forth from one hyper-focused situation to the next.
“A faculty member at another university told me about the program a few years ago and how much it had helped increase her productivity. When I saw the request for applications, I did not hesitate to apply, and I was not disappointed at all. This program helped me to be more centered, consistent and focused.”
— Grace Jepkemboi, Ph.D., professor, Department of Curriculum and Instruction
"The point of this program was to moderate everything," Thomas continued. "There was a lot of emphasis on planning ahead, creating long-term, short-term and mid-term goals. So when you have time, you are not surprised by it and at a loss for what to do with yourself. We were encouraged to do small blocks of regular writing to keep it part of our daily lives. You’ve been working on all these different parts of your life to make small amounts of progress in everything along the way. You don’t have to waste the time to sit down and say, ‘I haven’t done this in a while; I have to remember how to do this again.’”
Thomas says she has already recommended the program to many of her colleagues. “I have appreciated it so much,” she said. “Not just professionally; I have been able to apply a lot of the techniques we have learned to my personal life, as well. It had an impact in all areas of my life.”
Daily writing pays off
Grace Jepkemboi, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction in the School of Education, also participated in this summer’s Faculty Success Program. “A faculty member at another university told me about the program a few years ago and how much it had helped increase her productivity,” Jepkemboi said. “When I saw the request for applications, I did not hesitate to apply, and I was not disappointed at all. This program helped me to be more centered, consistent and focused.” Jepkemboi joined the Faculty Success Program’s alumni program this fall; she is one of 65 UAB faculty who have registered for the alumni program.
Jepkemboi says she continues to practice daily writing — 30 minutes per day from Monday to Friday — with two writing partners. “We hold each other accountable every week,” she said. “I am so thankful to UAB for providing this opportunity to me. It is one of the best programs tailored to increase faculty productivity.”
“Our goal for the university’s NCFDD membership has always been to see faculty members, postdocs and graduate students elevate their work and research by tapping into the unlimited resources available to them,” said Paulette Patterson Dilworth, Ph.D., UAB’s vice president for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. “We hope to see more instructors at all levels actively engage and participate.”
Read the full NCFDD report on UAB faculty engagement and access NCFDD resources at uab.edu/dei/about/faculty-resources.
