Faculty offices, labs, conference rooms, and lounges are spaces that generally reinforce silos rather than transcending them, as these are associated with individual faculty, units, or schools rather than the Faculty as such.聽The result of this separation is that there exist聽few opportunities for interaction among Faculty across the Boulder campus.聽The continuing expansion of the university to East Campus and potentially to South Campus adds further complications in terms of bringing faculty together.
As part of the effort to bridge these gaps and build greater faculty community, the聽Faculty Leadership Institute聽with support from the Provost initiated the Shared Perspectives and Community Engagement (SPACE) project.聽The project is organized by Faculty from all different parts of campus聽and sponsors community building events for Faculty throughout the Academic Year, including a Welcome Back Happy Hour, monthly lunches, and pop-up coffee hours around campus.聽The basis of the effort is the idea that these events, which are聽a combination of socializing and discussing topics of importance to Faculty, will bring Faculty together on a regular basis and begin to聽build the community that many feel is lacking on the campus.
The Faculty SPACE planning committee,聽which thanks Faculty SPACE participants for聽supporting the community building effort, includes Tiffany Beechy,聽Paul Chinowsky, Ginger Ferguson, David Hekman,聽Mark Hoefer, Heather Lewandowski, Shelly Miller (Faculty Lead), Rebecca Safran,聽Steve Vanderheiden, Gabby Wiersma, and Phoebe Young. 聽If you would like to be involved, please contact Shelly.Miller@Colorado.edu.
, professor of mechanical engineering, to learn more about the grassroots effort鈥攁 community-building series inviting faculty and instructors to gather and discuss topics they care about.聽