January 9, 2013 Faculty-Staff CU-Boulder Today

In this Issue

Spring semester faculty/staff tuition benefit deadlines are approaching

The tuition benefit continues to cover 9 credits per year at any CU campus for our employees. Recent changes allow for the benefit to be transferred from our faculty and staff to their eligible dependents for use only on the employee's campus of employment. Details on the tuition benefit are available at the CU Employee Tuition Benefit website: https://www.cu.edu/pbs/tuition-benefit/.

Improved iClicker+ available for spring semester

Many instructors opt to use iClickers to conduct live Q&A sessions in class with students. Starting this spring, the improved iClicker+ will be available to students for purchase in the campus bookstore. Faculty members who use iClickers should ensure they have the latest iClicker software on their computer.

National Academy of Sciences honors CU-Boulder researcher

University of Colorado Boulder faculty member John Gosling is one of 18 individuals honored today by the National Academy of Sciences for their outstanding scientific achievements.

Pronunciation of ‘s’ sounds impacts perception of gender, CU-Boulder researcher finds

A person’s style of speech — not just the pitch of his or her voice — may help determine whether the listener perceives the speaker to be male or female, according to a University of Colorado Boulder researcher who studied transgender people transitioning from female to male.

The way people pronounce their “s” sounds and the amount of resonance they use when speaking contributes to the perception of gender, according to Lal Zimman, whose findings are based on research he completed while earning his doctoral degree from CU-Boulder’s linguistics department.

Community Notes

2013 DEPA Reporting to begin next week

The annual Disclosure of External Professional Activity (DEPA) reporting period will run from 1/15/13-3/31/13. An administrative e-memo sent out in late 2012 highlighted some of the changes that disclosers can expect to see during the 2013 reporting process. As a result of even more recent clarifications regarding PHS/NIH regulations, the DEPA reporting site will be closed during the first part of January. This will allow additional updates to be addressed in the DEPA reporting form, and provide the best format possible for easier submission and timely review.

Website: http://www.colorado.edu/VCResearch/integrity/coic/index

CU Women Succeeding: Registration Open

Please join the CU Faculty Council Women's Committee for the 11^th Annual CU Women Succeeding Professional Development Symposium. Participants will learn tips for success at CU by participating in a series of workshops and presentations addressing many aspects of academic life. The symposium is free and all members of the CU faculty and staff are invited to attend. Register online at the symposium website.

Time Management Workshop

Do you find yourself wishing there were more hours in a day? Are you spending a lot of time looking for misplaced items on your desk and your filing cabinets? Getting and staying organized takes discipline and commitment. Attend this workshop to learn how to organize your work and manage clutter and paperwork more efficiently.

Well Argued? Well Written! A Writing Workshop

In academic writing, the argument is all. Whatever the discipline, whatever the genre—whether a book, an article, or a proposal for funding—the argument establishes failure or success. This workshop offers strategies for discovering a cogent thesis from among a welter of illusory choices, for stating the thesis unambiguously, for qualifying it intelligently, for defending it vigorously. Click through to review enrollment eligibility and workshop dates.

Website: http://tinyurl.com/WellArguedWellWritten

Contact: Meg Clarke

Are you a new mom?

Are you a new mom?
Have you felt down or depressed at any point in your life?

If your baby is between 3 and 6 months of age, you may be eligible to participate in a study examining the effects of a brief mindfulness practice on a mother’s mood, stress, and how things are going with her baby. The study consists of filling out questionnaires and watching and responding to a short movie. Participants also may be asked to do a brief daily mindfulness practice. In addition, childcare will be provided while you are at our research offices.

Getting Ready to Quit (smoking cessation)

Efforts are underway to make CU-Boulder a smoke-free campus. Come learn effective ways to quit smoking and begin to evaluate your readiness for change. Cessation methodologies from the behavioral health and medical fields will be presented by Janeen Haller-Abernethy, MSW, a counselor with the CU-Boulder Faculty and Staff Assistance Program.

Speaker:

Website: http://hr.colorado.edu/fsap/workshops/Pages/Workshops.aspx

Faculty Teaching with Technology Seminar, Spring 2013, call for participants

Do you experiment or innovate with new technology in your courses? Do you explore new technologies in your scholarship, and then integrate them into the classroom? Are you interested in meeting others who do the same, sharing your experiences, and learning more?