Dean's Update
April 14, 2023 - Aron Sousa, MD
Friends,
Over the last several years, the dean’s office and the university have benefited from an energetic and engaged group of faculty in academic governance. Our new strategic plan, our accreditation site visit, our leadership searches, faculty promotions, and our work in the larger university all depend upon engaged faculty on college and university committees. I’ve tried to recognize the importance of this work in the dean’s update as often as I can – I have room for three or four topics a week, and academic governance or the contribution of our people to academic governance frequently makes it to the final copy.
Lest you think all this committee service is always dead-end work, consider that academic governance and leadership in academic governance is one of the steps to administrative work. In a past turbulent time, I was chair of the curriculum committee before I was appointed interim associate dean; I knew Nara Parameswaran had been a hard-working, talented chair of the reappointment/promotion/tenure committee when I asked him to be interim associate dean for faculty affairs; and I knew of Andrea Wendling’s work as curriculum chair when I asked her to be interim senior associate dean for academic affairs.
Clearly, academic governance experience does not always develop into a deanlet position, and interim positions do not always lead to the non-interim role, but academic governance is one of the places faculty can demonstrate leadership and collaboration when they had previously not had the chance to show their leadership chops.
So, please nominate yourself or a buddy for a position in college academic governance with this form. You can read about our most excellent committees. Do not miss it if you can.
We are also in the midst of nominations for faculty awards. It turns out that one of the first steps toward winning external awards is getting internal awards. To that end, our good friends in CHM academic governance worked to create awards that recognize the efforts of faculty and staff of the college. You can read about the awards here, and you can and should nominate award worthy staff and faculty here. Next week, we will celebrate this year’s award winners at our own reception at Cowles House, and we plan to do the same for next year’s winners next spring. But no one gets an award without a nomination.
This week, I am rounding with the residents for the Department of Medicine’s Division of General Medicine. My goal is to round six to eight weeks a year, and people who follow the Update closely will know I enjoy rounding. My administrative staff tell me I am in a better mood when I am rounding. No word on whether I am in a bad mood for the other 46 weeks of the year…
Good mood or otherwise, I want to express my appreciation to Sean Valles, PhD (IU ’10) for stepping up to be interim director of the Office of Medical Education Research and Development (OMERAD) while the director is out. There are times when we really need someone to step up and take on an additional load, and Sean has stepped into the breach to serve the faculty, staff, and collaborators of OMERAD. Thank you, Sean.
Serving the people with you,
Aron
Aron Sousa, MD FACP
Dean