<div dir="ltr">Hi Annie and Todd,<div><br></div><div>Thank you so much for paying attention to this important matter and suggesting the change. I just reviewed the attached documents and fully agree that the suggested phrase may ensure an inclusive (in terms of research types) review for us. Please feel free to include my name in your email to VPAP.</div><div><br></div><div>Best,</div><div>Worku</div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sun, Feb 22, 2026 at 6:41 PM Annie Stanfield Ditta via Professorsofteaching <<a href="mailto:professorsofteaching@lists.ucr.edu">professorsofteaching@lists.ucr.edu</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div><div>Hi Professor of Teaching Colleagues,</div><div><br></div><div><b>TLDR: </b></div><div>Below please see a proposed email to be sent to the VPAP’s office regarding proposed changes to The CALL. Todd Sorensen (PoT in Economics) and I would like to suggest some wording to strengthen the degree of choice for PoTs in terms of what type of Professional and/or Scholarly Achievement and Activity to engage in. The deadline for changes to be sent to their office is end of business, Wednesday Feb. 25th. If you have any suggested changes to our email and/or other any changes you want to make to The CALL that you haven't passed along yet, could you please send them to us by end of day Tuesday 2/24 (sorry for the short turnaround!)?</div><div><br></div><div>--</div><div><br></div><div>If you have a little more time and want to read more about this request:</div><div><br></div><div><b>Some background:</b></div><div>We were happy to see that the VPAP sent out some FAQs (attached) to better inform chairs about the roles of Professors of Teaching and of our review process. One concern we had was that some of the language could be interpreted as de-emphasizing the option of disciplinary research as a contribution to "Professional and/or Scholarly Achievement and Activity”. </div><div><br></div><div>Specifically, the second page of the FAQ (FAQ1) has a bullet list of examples of "What types of scholarly or professional activities are valued?” Initially, disciplinary research was not included as an example. However, in an updated draft of this document (FAQ2), "Traditional disciplinary research or presentations” was added to this list.</div><div><br></div><div>In addition, we feel that the last paragraph on the first page de-emphasized this path for PoTs:</div><div><br></div><div>"Traditional disciplinary research is not required. However, Professors of Teaching are expected to engage in scholarly or professional activity related to teaching, such as pedagogical scholarship, curriculum development, or educational leadership."</div><div><br></div><div>We felt that the spirit of valuing traditional disciplinary research would be better expressed by the paragraph below; we have gone forward with the spirit of “what we wish the FAQ had said” to make our suggested changes to The CALL. We are not trying to get the FAQ document edited, but wanted to note this for possible future use.</div><div><br></div><div>"Professors of Teaching are expected to engage in <b>scholarly or professional activity</b>, which may take different forms. Traditional disciplinary research is <b>not required</b> but such work is valued in the merit and promotion process. Additionally, activities such as pedagogical scholarship, curriculum development, and/or educational <span> </span>leadership are valued in this category."</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><b>Proposed Email Draft:</b></div><div><br></div><div>Dear Dan,</div><div><br></div><div>Thank you for valuing the role of PoTs, and the broad set of potential contributions to Professional and/or Scholarly Achievement and Activity” that is valued in our roles. We especially appreciate the intentionality in sending around an FAQ document on this, and on adding "Traditional disciplinary research or presentations” as a bullet point item in the list of “What ˚types of scholarly or professional activities are valued.”</div><div><br></div><div>We would like to suggest the following changes to The CALL to reflect the spirit of a broad interpretation of Professional and/or Scholarly Achievement and Activities (including traditional disciplinary research or presentation) that will be valued in our review process:</div><div><br></div><div>Page 37; 4b: add in parentheses at end of line “(this includes both pedagogy-related and discipline-specific research)”.</div><div>Similar wording being added to #2 on pages 1-2 of the "UCR Guidelines for Professor of Teaching Series” would also help emphasize this point.</div><div><br></div><div>Best and thank you for your consideration,</div></div><div>Annie Ditta & Todd Sorensen</div><div>[and anyone else that wants to add their name!]</div><div><br></div><span class="gmail_signature_prefix">-- </span><br><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><b><font color="#999999">Annie S. Ditta, Ph.D.</font></b></div><div><font color="#999999">Pronouns: she/her/hers</font><font color="#888888"> </font><font size="1" style="color:rgb(136,136,136)">(<a href="https://www.mypronouns.org/what-and-why" style="color:rgb(17,85,204)" target="_blank">what's this?</a>)</font></div><div dir="ltr"><font color="#999999">Associate Professor of Teaching</font></div><div dir="ltr"><font color="#999999">Distinguished Teaching Professor<br></font><div><font color="#999999">Department of Psychology</font></div><div><font color="#999999">University of California, Riverside</font></div><div><div style="font-size:12.8px"><font size="2"><font color="#999999">LinkedIn:</font><font color="#888888"> </font><a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/anniesditta" style="color:rgb(17,85,204)" target="_blank">www.linkedin.com/in/anniesditta</a></font></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>
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</blockquote></div><div><br clear="all"></div><div><br></div><span class="gmail_signature_prefix">-- </span><br><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><p class="MsoNormal">Worku Nida, PhD </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:normal"><span style="font-size:11pt">[he/him/his]</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:normal">Associate Professor of
Teaching </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:normal">Department of Anthropology</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:normal">University of California,
Riverside</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:normal">Email: <a href="mailto:worku.nida@ucr.edu" target="_blank">worku.nida@ucr.edu</a> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:normal">"Education is the most
powerful weapon which you can use to change the world," Nelson Mandela</p></div></div>