Office of Faculty Affairs Highlights
The Office of Faculty Affairs prioritizes three areas of focus to meet our mission of supporting faculty and faculty leadership in the development of an exceptional learning community at the University of Kansas: Faculty Advancement & Recognition, Faculty Development & Growth, and Faculty Relations & Policy.
This page shares highlights of our work in these three areas, along with our office partnerships, for the 2024-25 academic year. As we are always looking ahead to what is on the horizon, we also provide previews of the new initiatives we are looking forward to.
As we work to strengthen our faculty community, we are thankful for our campus partners who help us make our work even more meaningful.
On behalf of the Faculty Affairs team, thank you for your engagement and partnership over this past year!
Faculty Advancement & Recognition
Through Faculty Advancement and Recognition, the Office of Faculty Affairs supports the processes for key milestones in the faculty career including faculty hiring, promotion and tenure, and sabbatical leaves. We also facilitate the distinguished professor selection process and host the Distinguished Professor Lecture Series. Additionally, we administer university teaching and service awards, scholarly professorships and fellowships, and support the nomination process for external prestigious and highly prestigious research awards.
We continue working to ensure that university advancement processes for faculty are streamlined, consistent, and aligned with policy at the university and unit levels. In the 2024-25 academic year, our office facilitated 25 hours of committee work for the university committees on promotion and tenure, sabbatical leaves, distinguished professorships, and teaching awards. These faculty committees commit a significant amount of time and effort to providing this critical service to the university, and their insights inform process and policy improvements for both individual faculty and faculty committees engaged in future advancement activities.
Similarly, we have spent the past few award cycles streamlining our internal awards processes, focusing on timely communications and succinct deadlines and applications to make the nomination process as clear and simple as possible. In recent years, we have been able to not only prioritize our teaching and collaboration award processes but also offer more support to faculty pursuing external research awards, which has led to record numbers of applications submitted for both internal and external awards.
For the 2025-26 academic year, the Office of Faculty Affairs is excited to expand our honorific award management to include a new Faculty Service Award — its first awardees will be announced in spring 2026! We will continue to expand our support and resources for external research awards and spotlights and work with university partners to further develop a comprehensive approach to external prestigious and highly prestigious awards.
As needs around reporting for external entities and labor management expand, we will begin exploring ways to more efficiently and accurately report on faculty workload, activities, and evaluations and promotions, while making these processes easier for faculty and unit administrators.
Raj Bhala (School of Law) and Hyunjin Seo (School of Journalism and Mass Communications) were selected as University Distinguished Professors for the 2025-26 academic year. Criteria for selection include a record of exceptional scholarship, participation in university affairs and professional organizations, service to the community and support for the growth and success of their students, colleagues and the institution.
Bhala previously held the Leo S. Brenneisen and Rice Distinguished Professorships at the School of Law and is a Fulbright Specialist in law and literature and international trade law. He gave his inaugural Distinguished Professor lecture on September 15.
Seo was the Oscar Stauffer Chair in the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications and is the founding director of the KU Center for Digital Inclusion. She will give her inaugural Distinguished Professor lecture on November 4.
We continue working to ensure that university advancement processes for faculty are streamlined, consistent, and aligned with policy at the university and unit levels. In the 2024-25 academic year, our office facilitated 25 hours of committee work for the university committees on promotion and tenure, sabbatical leaves, distinguished professorships, and teaching awards. These faculty committees commit a significant amount of time and effort to providing this critical service to the university, and their insights inform process and policy improvements for both individual faculty and faculty committees engaged in future advancement activities.
Similarly, we have spent the past few award cycles streamlining our internal awards processes, focusing on timely communications and succinct deadlines and applications to make the nomination process as clear and simple as possible. In recent years, we have been able to not only prioritize our teaching and collaboration award processes but also offer more support to faculty pursuing external research awards, which has led to record numbers of applications submitted for both internal and external awards.
For the 2025-26 academic year, the Office of Faculty Affairs is excited to expand our honorific award management to include a new Faculty Service Award — its first awardees will be announced in spring 2026! We will continue to expand our support and resources for external research awards and spotlights and work with university partners to further develop a comprehensive approach to external prestigious and highly prestigious awards.
As needs around reporting for external entities and labor management expand, we will begin exploring ways to more efficiently and accurately report on faculty workload, activities, and evaluations and promotions, while making these processes easier for faculty and unit administrators.
Raj Bhala (School of Law) and Hyunjin Seo (School of Journalism and Mass Communications) were selected as University Distinguished Professors for the 2025-26 academic year. Criteria for selection include a record of exceptional scholarship, participation in university affairs and professional organizations, service to the community and support for the growth and success of their students, colleagues and the institution.
Bhala previously held the Leo S. Brenneisen and Rice Distinguished Professorships at the School of Law and is a Fulbright Specialist in law and literature and international trade law. He gave his inaugural Distinguished Professor lecture on September 15.
Seo was the Oscar Stauffer Chair in the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications and is the founding director of the KU Center for Digital Inclusion. She will give her inaugural Distinguished Professor lecture on November 4.
Faculty Advancement & Recognition Highlights 1
Faculty Advancement & Recognition Highlights
Faculty Development & Growth
The Office of Faculty Affairs facilitates Faculty Development and Growth as we provide faculty and academic staff with the tools and opportunities to succeed across all career stages. Our professional development initiatives begin prior to orientation and include programming such as small group learning circles, programming relevant to the varied career stages of a faculty member, KU Faculty Development Academies Week, and also programming for campus leaders through our Associate Deans, Chairs, and Directors series.
Last year was one of growth in the programming we offer to faculty. We launched a full summer email outreach campaign that focused on topics and resources to support new faculty, including sections on KU’s history, traditions, and fun facts to help build connection with KU and the Lawrence/KC area. We hosted Faculty How-To at KU sessions and drop-in hours throughout the summer, and added a coffee and campus tour to New Faculty Orientation for those interested in learning more about the KU Lawrence campus. In the winter, we hosted sessions to support faculty writing, to help faculty “supercharge” their Canvas site, and a spring new faculty orientation session for those joining mid-year. In our early career year-long series, we hosted 12 sessions on topics such as mentoring, student support, research partnerships, preparing for annual evaluations, preparing for milestone reviews, and time management. In addition to building out new/early career faculty offerings, we supported associate deans, chairs, and directors through day-long workshops and lunch-and-learns, hosted faculty learning circles, and partnered with 29 units across campus to offer our second annual Faculty Development Academies Week.
We will continue to build partnerships to offer programming that meets faculty needs across the academic career cycle. New Faculty Orientation will evolve to a full two-day experience, providing faculty with valuable time to engage with support systems across campus, learn about KU, and connect with new colleagues. Our early career offerings will expand to support faculty in their first through fifth year, and we are excited to pilot programming to support mid-career faculty development.
We are expanding programming for associate deans, chairs, and directors, adding an orientation series for those new to their leadership positions, and building out a digital resource collection. We continue to support chairs, associate deans, and directors through day-long workshops as well as lunch-and-learns centered on the core competencies of data-informed decision making, academic and program planning and review, people support and development, and financial and operational planning.
We look forward to growing our capacity with our new Program Fellows initiative, and we are proud of the role that the Senior Administrative Fellows program has in supporting faculty leadership and leadership development at KU. In all of our programming, we evolve our efforts with evidence-based practices and just-in-time topics to support faculty and faculty leadership across the Lawrence and Edwards campuses.
“The opportunity that SAF offers — to have time that is dedicated learning about leadership, thinking deeply about a unit-specific challenge, and engaging in self-reflection — is a special opportunity. Take full advantage of this dedicated time by engaging deeply with the speakers, your cohort, and the SAF resources.” - Kyle Velte
Associate Dean and Professor of Law
KU Faculty Development Academies provide a week of immersive development sessions on topics such as global engagement, research and innovation, graduate student mentoring, and academic leadership, with a fifth day reserved as a writing day. Each day-long intensive provides the opportunity to delve deep and develop a core capacity in a chosen area.
Last year was one of growth in the programming we offer to faculty. We launched a full summer email outreach campaign that focused on topics and resources to support new faculty, including sections on KU’s history, traditions, and fun facts to help build connection with KU and the Lawrence/KC area. We hosted Faculty How-To at KU sessions and drop-in hours throughout the summer, and added a coffee and campus tour to New Faculty Orientation for those interested in learning more about the KU Lawrence campus. In the winter, we hosted sessions to support faculty writing, to help faculty “supercharge” their Canvas site, and a spring new faculty orientation session for those joining mid-year. In our early career year-long series, we hosted 12 sessions on topics such as mentoring, student support, research partnerships, preparing for annual evaluations, preparing for milestone reviews, and time management. In addition to building out new/early career faculty offerings, we supported associate deans, chairs, and directors through day-long workshops and lunch-and-learns, hosted faculty learning circles, and partnered with 29 units across campus to offer our second annual Faculty Development Academies Week.
We will continue to build partnerships to offer programming that meets faculty needs across the academic career cycle. New Faculty Orientation will evolve to a full two-day experience, providing faculty with valuable time to engage with support systems across campus, learn about KU, and connect with new colleagues. Our early career offerings will expand to support faculty in their first through fifth year, and we are excited to pilot programming to support mid-career faculty development.
We are expanding programming for associate deans, chairs, and directors, adding an orientation series for those new to their leadership positions, and building out a digital resource collection. We continue to support chairs, associate deans, and directors through day-long workshops as well as lunch-and-learns centered on the core competencies of data-informed decision making, academic and program planning and review, people support and development, and financial and operational planning.
We look forward to growing our capacity with our new Program Fellows initiative, and we are proud of the role that the Senior Administrative Fellows program has in supporting faculty leadership and leadership development at KU. In all of our programming, we evolve our efforts with evidence-based practices and just-in-time topics to support faculty and faculty leadership across the Lawrence and Edwards campuses.
“The opportunity that SAF offers — to have time that is dedicated learning about leadership, thinking deeply about a unit-specific challenge, and engaging in self-reflection — is a special opportunity. Take full advantage of this dedicated time by engaging deeply with the speakers, your cohort, and the SAF resources.” - Kyle Velte
Associate Dean and Professor of Law
KU Faculty Development Academies provide a week of immersive development sessions on topics such as global engagement, research and innovation, graduate student mentoring, and academic leadership, with a fifth day reserved as a writing day. Each day-long intensive provides the opportunity to delve deep and develop a core capacity in a chosen area.
Faculty Development & Growth Highlights 1
Faculty Development & Growth Highlights 2
Faculty Relations & Policy
In the area of Faculty Relations and Policy, the Office of Faculty Affairs is involved with the development and review of policy that overlaps with the faculty role. We offer policy support through education, collaborate with governance on faculty and academic-related topics, and engage in collective bargaining with United Academics of KU (UAKU) around the terms and conditions of employment. The office is also responsible for processes that pertain to faculty hiring, external activity reporting, workplace leave, differential allocations of effort, and additional pay.
In AY24-25, the Office of Faculty Affairs focused on developing resources in key policy areas and partnering with others around campus on policy and procedural updates that impact faculty, including the policy on minimum qualifications for instructional faculty and the procedures for the KBOR spoken language competency requirement. A “policy in action” section has become a mainstay in our monthly newsletter to provide targeted and timely updates, and we created and promoted resources such as annual evaluation resources, an external activity request FAQ, and a freedom of speech and expression website and handout.
Collective bargaining between university leadership and UAKU, the recognized faculty and academic staff union, began during the 2024-25 academic year, with an agreed upon wage adjustment and memorandum of understanding initiating the process in summer 2024. Between summer 2024 and summer 2025, 31 collective bargaining sessions took place, with nine proposals reaching a tentative agreement.
Feedback from campus leaders last year led to the formation of a new advisory board, the KU Council of Academic Leaders. The aim of this group is to provide space for direct engagement of campus leaders and university leaders for the purpose of providing informed feedback and recommendations on topics that are critical to the university’s mission and strategic goals. This new Council of Academic Leaders will meet three times each semester beginning in fall 2025.
Collective bargaining with UAKU continues this year with the goal of reaching a finalized contract. Once a contract is in place, the Office of Faculty Affairs will develop and provide education and resources on the terms of the contract and will support units in policy revisions in areas impacted by the terms of the contract.
The 2024-25 Student Survey of Teaching Task Force conducted a comprehensive review of KU’s Student Survey of Teaching (SST) tool following three years of implementation since 2021. The review included gathering input from faculty, GTAs, unit leaders and graduate and undergraduate students, analyzing KU SST data, and reviewing relevant research on student surveys of teaching.
From the review, recommendations emerged in three main areas:
- Survey Structure and Questions: Expand from 3-point to 4-point rating scale, consolidate separate course/instructor surveys into a single survey per instructor, center the student experience in the language, and add questions on learning outcomes and teaching assistants.
- Administration and Response Rates: Provide instructors with clear communication, training, and ongoing support. Instructors should allocate dedicated class time for students to complete evaluations, consider offering incentives to encourage participation, and explain and model how student input is used to support the instructor’s continuous course improvement.
- Dashboards/Reports: Enable longitudinal trend analysis, optimize dashboards for instructor needs versus chair needs, investigate AI-powered comment summaries and provide multiple ways to export comments.
All recommendations are currently being reviewed for feasibility and prioritization for the 2025-26 academic year.
In the fall 2024 semester, with the goal of developing a more effective faculty activity management tool that supports faculty evaluation and recognition efforts, Analytics, Institutional Research & Effectiveness (AIRE) and the Office of Faculty Affairs (OFA) formed a small, cross-disciplinary group of faculty to provide feedback on KU’s faculty activity management system, Faculty Insight.
Over a six-month period, the members of this group attended a Faculty Insight training session led by AIRE, updated all parts of their Faculty Insight profile, participated in feedback sessions with AIRE, OFA, and other user testers, and provided detailed, constructive feedback via survey.
The Report is now available on the facultyaffairs.ku.edu site and updates to enhancements made will be shared via the monthly faculty affairs newsletter.
In AY24-25, the Office of Faculty Affairs focused on developing resources in key policy areas and partnering with others around campus on policy and procedural updates that impact faculty, including the policy on minimum qualifications for instructional faculty and the procedures for the KBOR spoken language competency requirement. A “policy in action” section has become a mainstay in our monthly newsletter to provide targeted and timely updates, and we created and promoted resources such as annual evaluation resources, an external activity request FAQ, and a freedom of speech and expression website and handout.
Collective bargaining between university leadership and UAKU, the recognized faculty and academic staff union, began during the 2024-25 academic year, with an agreed upon wage adjustment and memorandum of understanding initiating the process in summer 2024. Between summer 2024 and summer 2025, 31 collective bargaining sessions took place, with nine proposals reaching a tentative agreement.
Feedback from campus leaders last year led to the formation of a new advisory board, the KU Council of Academic Leaders. The aim of this group is to provide space for direct engagement of campus leaders and university leaders for the purpose of providing informed feedback and recommendations on topics that are critical to the university’s mission and strategic goals. This new Council of Academic Leaders will meet three times each semester beginning in fall 2025.
Collective bargaining with UAKU continues this year with the goal of reaching a finalized contract. Once a contract is in place, the Office of Faculty Affairs will develop and provide education and resources on the terms of the contract and will support units in policy revisions in areas impacted by the terms of the contract.
The 2024-25 Student Survey of Teaching Task Force conducted a comprehensive review of KU’s Student Survey of Teaching (SST) tool following three years of implementation since 2021. The review included gathering input from faculty, GTAs, unit leaders and graduate and undergraduate students, analyzing KU SST data, and reviewing relevant research on student surveys of teaching.
From the review, recommendations emerged in three main areas:
- Survey Structure and Questions: Expand from 3-point to 4-point rating scale, consolidate separate course/instructor surveys into a single survey per instructor, center the student experience in the language, and add questions on learning outcomes and teaching assistants.
- Administration and Response Rates: Provide instructors with clear communication, training, and ongoing support. Instructors should allocate dedicated class time for students to complete evaluations, consider offering incentives to encourage participation, and explain and model how student input is used to support the instructor’s continuous course improvement.
- Dashboards/Reports: Enable longitudinal trend analysis, optimize dashboards for instructor needs versus chair needs, investigate AI-powered comment summaries and provide multiple ways to export comments.
All recommendations are currently being reviewed for feasibility and prioritization for the 2025-26 academic year.
In the fall 2024 semester, with the goal of developing a more effective faculty activity management tool that supports faculty evaluation and recognition efforts, Analytics, Institutional Research & Effectiveness (AIRE) and the Office of Faculty Affairs (OFA) formed a small, cross-disciplinary group of faculty to provide feedback on KU’s faculty activity management system, Faculty Insight.
Over a six-month period, the members of this group attended a Faculty Insight training session led by AIRE, updated all parts of their Faculty Insight profile, participated in feedback sessions with AIRE, OFA, and other user testers, and provided detailed, constructive feedback via survey.
The Report is now available on the facultyaffairs.ku.edu site and updates to enhancements made will be shared via the monthly faculty affairs newsletter.