As nominations open for the 2019 CNS Staff Excellence and Teaching Excellence Awards, Dean Goldbart sent the below message to the college community.
Excellence comes about not by happenstance but through dedicated effort, laser-focused energy and imaginative spirit. Here in the College of Natural Sciences, excellence requires the contributions of individuals performing at the peak of their abilities with creativity, determination and drive.
In every department and unit, there are dedicated individuals whose everyday work, as well as efforts in their classrooms, transform lives. In uplifting even one life, they serve to advance a whole network of adjoining lives, both in and beyond our community here in the college. This semester, I hope you will join me in supporting two important goals:
- Recognizing the invaluable contributions of CNS staff, and
- Celebrating and advancing excellence in teaching college-wide.
Staff are instrumental in all that happens in this extraordinary place. Many have carried an additional workload over the past year with the transition in human resources systems to WorkDay. Whether you are a staff member or faculty, I hope you will take time during what remains of the semester to step back and acknowledge staff among and around you who enable the everyday successes in which our college takes pride. Relaying your thanks, taking note of work well done – these small gestures matter, and they help to advance the excellence of our institution. The 2019 CNS Staff Excellence Awards nominations are open now, and I warmly encourage you to submit the names of outstanding performers in your unit for this recognition.
Regarding classroom instruction, we who are faculty simply must excel in our teaching, which is as essential to our educational mission as depth and creativity are to our research mission. It is my hope that all of our students – be they Natural Sciences majors or students from across the campus – leave our classes inspired by what they have learned and equipped to enter a world that deeply needs a science- and mathematics-literate citizenry. As you who teach enter the second half of the semester, I encourage you to explore the offerings of the Texas Institute for Discovery Education in Science (TIDES), which provide CNS faculty with online, self-paced instructor training and two-day workshops during the summer on Course Design. I also encourage you to nominate an exceptional colleague for a 2019 CNS Teaching Excellence Award, as our community works to celebrate those who teach brilliantly.
Each of us has a role to play in elevating excellence in the College of Natural Sciences. I welcome your award submissions, your contributions to this dialogue, and the opportunities to learn more about phenomenal performance by CNS faculty and staff this year.
