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August 24, 2012 |
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A major revision of federal conflict-of-interest policies that goes into effect Friday, August 24, will significantly alter the process faculty go through to apply for support from the National Institutes of Health and other agencies under the Public Health Service.
The new regulations (42 CFR 50) will
The University of Tennessee has developed a systemwide policy to comply with the new regulations. Note that the university's own conflict-of-interest practices, while also recently revised, do NOT take the place of PHS requirements and forms. Faculty, staff, and students must respond to both policies separately. Contact: Miriam Campo (mcampo@utk.edu) More Information The deadline to submit requests for the Equipment and Infrastructure Awards has been set as September 19, 2012. The Office of Research administers some $300,000 annually that supports equipment and infrastructure purchases, repairs, and upgrades. Requests are taken early in the fiscal year so that the funds can be expended before the end of the fiscal year. EIA funds can be used to support needs of recently hired faculty and researchers. The awards typically require one-to-one or preferably two-to-one cost-sharing with departments and colleges. Individual faculty members or groups of faculty can propose purchases, but faculty in the Colleges of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources and Veterinary Medicine are not eligible to apply due to the source of SARIF funding. Proposals should include statements of support from appropriate departments, colleges, and centers, and include levels of cost-sharing commitment. Proposals for EIA funding should be submitted electronically to Jane Taylor (tayloje@utk.edu) and should not exceed five pages in length. A committee of the Research Council reviews proposals and makes recommendations, which are announced in November. Key Date: September 19, 2012, at noon - electronic submission of request More Information Three detailed workshops have been scheduled to help new faculty understand the services and resources available at UTK to help them become productive researchers and scholars.
Contact: Greg Reed (gdreed@utk.edu, 974-0437), associate vice chancellor for research The Office of Research will offer a workshop for post-doc mentors and mentees in September. Greg Reed, associate vice chancellor for research, and Robert Porter, director of research development, will detail expectations and roles for mentors and mentees, as well as characteristics of successful mentor-mentee relationships. The workshop will focus on national best practices, as well as resources and services to assist the mentoring project at UTK. Mentoring is a key relationship between faculty and early-career scholars and is a required component of proposals to some funding agencies. Key Date: September 24, 2012, from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. in Room 403, Blount Hall, 1534 White Avenue Contact: Email ortraining@utk.edu with name and title to register Under requirements that went into effect April 15, 2012, all personnel (principal investigators, co-PIs, advisors, and students) listed on a human subjects application to the Institutional Review Board must provide certification of training in human subjects research. To obtain access to the appropriate training and certification, contact ortraining@utk.edu. More Information As competition for research funding grows more intense each year and many UT academic programs rely on faculty winning substantial awards, the Office of Research is offering a series of two-hour workshops to sharpen proposal-writing skills. Every topic is offered more than once to minimize schedule conflicts. Scheduled for fall 2012:
More Information Universities and colleges need to establish teaching-integrity committees which handle some of the questionable teaching behaviors faculty mentors engage in that fail the needs of their students. That's the conclusion of a recently published study in Nature (12 July 2012) by researchers who surveyed faculty about the seriousness of a variety of behaviors typically engaged in by university teachers. John Braxton, a professor of education at Vanderbilt, found that respondent faculty members divided irresponsible behaviors into two classes: (1) egregious actions that were ethically inappropriate and (2) less offensive behaviors that, while possibly injurious to students, did not rise to the level of professional misconduct. Among the totally unacceptable behaviors worthy of professional punishment: misappropriating a student's work, making suggestive remarks of a sexual or racist nature to students, delaying graduation of the best graduate students to keep them in the lab, and borrowing money from students. The respondents found a second level of behaviors "generally ignorable" in the academic setting, including being routinely late for class, ignoring students with different research and academic interests, ignoring the course outline, routinely missing appointment with students, and failing to provide appropriate feedback on a thesis or dissertation. Respondents indicated that "faculty members should avoid — but not necessarily be punished for — neglectful teaching and mentoring," the authors wrote. Braxton proposed that universities create codes of conduct and mechanisms for reporting inadequate teaching behaviors that otherwise can be difficult to identify and correct. He posited the need for teaching-integrity committees that could address the shortcomings of irresponsible faculty with warnings, reprimands, censures, and salary actions. "The vast majority of US faculty members have simply not been taught how to teach," Braxton wrote. "And these responses suggest that they are subjecting young scientists-in-training to the same neglect." More Information (PDF) The UT STEM Education Outreach brown-bag lunches resume with a planning meeting on Friday, September 7, at 12 noon in the Business Incubator Building. Faculty and staff with interest in or responsibility for facilitating and managing ongoing outreach projects in science, technology, engineering, and math are invited to share resources and information. RSVP The Office of Research has created a website to help faculty find undergraduate researchers. Faculty members with an available undergraduate research experience can send a description of the position for posting on the "Current Opportunities" web page and announcement on the undergraduate research Facebook page. Send listings to Sharon Pound (spound@utk.edu) and include the following information:
Key Dates: October 5, 2012 - deadline to apply for support | November 5 - registration deadline More Information OPPORTUNITIES
The deadline for submitting requests for support for 2013 scientific and educational activities is nearing.Key Date: September 1, 2012 More Information The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is soliciting nominations for its award honoring innovators in the distribution of vaccines. Nominees will be judged on their impact on vaccine-preventable diseases among women and children in developing countries, on the innovation and creativity of the work, and on its scalability to national and global populations. More Information The Tennessee Department of Health has issued an amendment to its request for proposals for a statewide toll-free, dial-in, telephone-based assistance program to be known as the Tennessee Breastfeeding Hotline. Key Dates: September 6, 2012, at 2 p.m. — submission of proposal More Information (PDF) The National Science Foundation is soliciting applications for its Graduate Research Fellowship Program. The program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students who are pursuing research-based master's and doctoral degrees in fields within NSF's mission. The GRFP provides three years of support for the graduate education of individuals who have demonstrated their potential for significant achievements in science and engineering research. Key Submission Dates:
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News & Opportunities is published by the Office of Research at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
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