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Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs
400 W. First St.
Chico, CA 95929–0110

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Announcements and News

2022-23 Book In Common - The Best We Could Do
May 16, 2022
Sent on behalf of the Book in Common Selection Committee
Thank you to everyone who engaged so deeply with the 2021-2022 Book in Common, Tommy Orange's novel There There.
We are pleased to announce that The Best We Could Do (2017) by Thi Bui has been selected as the Book in Common for 2022-2023. Bui's The Best We Could Do is a graphic novel-style memoir about her family's journey from Vietnam to the United States, their new life in the United States, and the struggles of connecting with family, culture, and identity.
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Chico State’s 11th Annual Hall of Honor
March 11, 2022
Debra S. Larson, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs
We are pleased to announce the return of Chico State’s Hall of Honor! During this year’s ceremony, the following retired faculty and staff will be honored by being inducted for their extraordinary contributions to Chico State, to the success of our students, and for their service to our community.
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Search for Associate Vice President for Academic Personnel
March 8, 2022
Debra S. Larson, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs
Academic Affairs is launching a national search for the next Associate Vice President for Academic Personnel. More information can be found on our Executive Openings page.
At this time, I wish to personally acknowledge and thank Brian Oppy for his exceptional service as Associate Vice President for Academic Personnel over the past two years. During this time, Brian has accomplished much. He rebuilt the OAPL team after a near complete turnover prior to his appointment. The new OAPL team is outstanding and are known for their responsiveness and quality. Brian served on the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) team (now called the Pandemic Management Team or PMT) throughout the incredibly challenging pandemic and was instrumental in our university’s pivot to remote instruction and the switch to electronic personnel forms and processes. OAPL and HR collaborated well to successfully convert to the CHRS PageUP Recruiting system and have instituted various tactics to further diversity and inclusion in our recruitments. He consistently provided high quality service to our faculty, the Division, and our campus. He is respected by all, and I truly appreciate his service and dedication to Chico State. I have trusted Brian and his ability to navigate the breadth and complexities of academic personnel matters. He will continue to serve in the AVP role until mid-July to provide some overlap.
Please join me in thanking Brian for his service as AVP for Academic Personnel as he prepares to transition back to a faculty role next semester.
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2022 Glenn Kendall Public Service Award Nominations
February 14, 2022
Debra S. Larson, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs
The deadline has passed for this year.
Faculty, department chairs, directors, and deans are invited to nominate students for the 2021-2022 Glenn Kendall Public Service Award. This prestigious award recognizes an outstanding graduating senior with exemplary scholarship and public service. This award is available to candidates from all fields of study who graduated fall 2021 or will graduate spring 2022.
Award
This is a $600 award. The recipient must have a record which indicates promising public service after completing studies at the University.
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Assigned Time for Exceptional Levels of Service to Students
February 7, 2022
Debra S. Larson, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs
Marianne Paiva, Chair, Academic Senate
Applications have closed for this year.
The call for the 2022-2023 Exceptional Service Assigned Time (ESAT) submissions has gone out (PDF). The deadline is February 28th. Additional information can be found at the ESAT webpage.
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Josie Otwell Award
January 31, 2022
Debra S. Larson, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs
Applications are closed for this year.
We are pleased to send out a call for the Josie Otwell Student Assistant Award for the 2022-2023 academic year. One award for approximately $5,000 will be provided.
The criteria are:
• Students must be California residents
• Students must be enrolled full-time at Chico State
• The funding may only be used to “pay for student assistants who perform jobs for professors when other funds are not available from another source. Each college dean may submit one application describing the greatest need within her or his college for funding to a professor for student assistant funding.”
Please see the following for more information: Josie Otwell Student Assistant Fund Award Procedures(opens in new window)
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Faculty FAQs for Spring 2022
January 27, 2022
Daniel Grassian, Vice Provost for Academic Affairs
Brian Oppy, Associate Vice President for Academic Personnel
Denise Hardy, Director of Labor Relations for Academic Personnel
Colleagues,
The linked document, Spring 2022 FAQs for Instructional Faculty (PDF), lists frequently asked questions we have received from faculty regarding spring 2022 instruction along with our corresponding answers. As noted on the document, this list is evolving, so please check back for updates at the following link: https://www.csuchico.edu/coronavirus/faculty.shtml.
Please free to reach out to any one of us with further questions or concerns.
We hope your semester is off to a great start.
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Welcome Message from Provost Larson for Spring 2022
January 20, 2022
Debra Larson, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs
Colleagues,
Another successful semester is behind us! Even as we continued to deal with COVID-19, each and every one of you stepped up to meet the needs of our students and each other. Even with the exhaustion of dealing with the ongoing pandemic, our campus met and, more often than not, exceeded expectations. I wanted to start off the semester acknowledging just a few accomplishments as we start the spring 2022 semester.
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Message from President Hutchinson and Provost Larson on Spring 2022
January 19, 2022
Gayle E. Hutchinson, President
Debra Larson, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs
Dear faculty colleagues,
First, we want to thank you for all that you have done and continue to do to teach, care for, and mentor our students during these challenging pandemic semesters. We know you have made a number of personal and professional sacrifices to keep this University running, and your efforts have been extraordinary.
We are now about to move into our fifth pandemic-impacted semester, which begins with the first day of classes on January 24. We’re writing to update you about instruction for the spring 2022 semester along with other information. In the spirit of shared governance, these campus plans were shared with a broad group of stakeholders including our Academic Senate Executive Officers, who provided important feedback.
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4th Annual Tipping Point Student Success Summit: Advancing Equity Together
January 10, 2022
Kate McCarthy, Dean of Undergraduate Education
4th Annual Tipping Point Student Success Summit: Advancing Equity Together
Mark your calendar and reserve your meals now!
The January 19^th event is just around the corner and the schedule is set!
This year’s Tipping Point event will be focused on the critical challenge of closing equity gaps in Chico State graduation rates and the work of the campus-wide Advancing Equity Project, led by the Graduation Initiative Team and supported by GI 2025 funding.
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Book in Common November Events
November 2, 2021
Laura Nice, Book in Common Coordinator
November is Native American Heritage Month, and there are several Book in Common events planned to support our reading and discussions of Tommy Orange’s novel There There.
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Study and Finals Weeks
October 29, 2021
Debra S. Larson, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs
Daniel S. Grassian, Vice Provost for Academic Affairs
Dear faculty,
Providing students with regular schedules and sufficient time to study is part of our ongoing commitment to student success. As part of this effort, we are writing to remind you of an important University policy (EM 17-004) concerning final exams as well as some specific information pertinent to ChicoFlex instruction.
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Institutional Biosafety Committee (IBC) Chair
October 13, 2021
Debra S. Larson, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs
Mary Sidney, CEO, Chico State Enterprises
Under the direction of the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs, the University’s Institutional Biosafety Committee (IBC) for research utilizing recombinant or synthetic nucleic acid molecules is searching for faculty interested in serving as the IBC Chair. It is expected that the candidate will begin their full appointment as Chair effective immediately. This appointment is for a term not to exceed three years. The successful candidate will receive one AWTU for their service for each semester during the academic year and will be compensated at their hourly rate as a Chico State Enterprises (CSE) employee during the summer term.
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Call for Faculty Assessment Fellow Applications
September 23, 2021
Daniel Grassian, Vice Provost for Academic Affairs
Sharon Barrios, Dean of Graduate Studies
The Provost’s Office and the Office of Graduate Studies is seeking a faculty assessment fellow for spring 2022 and possibly summer or fall 2022.
Background:
In order to help the annual assessment process become more meaningful and substantial for faculty, as recommended in our last WSCUC review, we need to have a clearer sense of what each college and department is doing with its annual assessments, as well as faculty perceptions of such assessments. Then we can make more substantial determinations of what more we may want to streamline and/or incorporate at the program, department, college, or Academic Affairs level. Ideally, this work should be done by a faculty member with experience in and knowledge of programmatic assessment., as well as someone who can inspire trust and confidence across the colleges.
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Call for Applications: Course-based Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities Program (CUReCAP)
September 20, 2021
Kate McCarthy, Dean of Undergraduate Education
Please note: This program is different from the Faculty-Mentored Research opportunity announced last week (though both are HEERF-funded). Faculty interested in mentoring individual students in a research project should apply for that program (PDF). The CUReCAP program supports the development of course-based research and creative activities.
Faculty are invited to apply to one of two funded cohorts to transform an existing course to embed a high-impact authentic research or creative activity. Cohort One will develop the project this semester and implement in Spring 2022; Cohort Two will develop projects in Spring 2022 for implementation in Fall 2022. Support is also available to Cohort 1 for peer research mentors to support students in the course (additional funding will be sought for Cohort 2 peer mentors).
These experiences are shown to have a positive impact on student learning and retention, and embedding them in coursework makes them accessible to students who might not otherwise have research opportunities.
All faculty (lecturers and tenured/tenure track) are eligible and all disciplines are welcome. Please see the detailed program description and application for specifics on meeting times, deliverables, and compensation.
The deadline for applications is October 1.
For questions, please contact Kate McCarthy (kmccarthy@csuchico.edu) or Brandi Aranguren (BAranguren@csuchico.edu).
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Alternative Activity Options for Quarantined Students
August 31, 2021
Daniel Grassian, Vice Provost for Academic Affairs
Holly Nevarez, Executive Chair, and Department Chair in Public Health & Health Services Administration
Brian Oppy, Associate Vice President for Academic Personnel
Dear faculty colleagues,
We hope that the first week of class has been going smoothly. As we continue to navigate our return to campus this semester, there will likely be occasions where students cannot attend in-person classes as they follow COVID-19 safety mitigation directives to quarantine. To lessen the negative impact of missing valuable class time and to encourage continued student success, there may be a time when you wish to provide alternative activities for quarantined students. We are writing to recommend different ideas about how you might do this.
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Update on the Institutional Review Board’s (IRB) Transition to Cayuse
August 30, 2021
Chico State Enterprises
Over the summer, the IRB began transitioning to the Cayuse Research Suite for online protocol submission and management. Effective immediately, all human subjects research applications are required to be submitted through Cayuse. New applications submitted using the PDF form will not be accepted. Please visit the IRB website for additional information.
Please note that protocols approved by the IRB prior to today’s date will not be integrated into Cayuse. Principal Investigators conducting research under these “legacy” protocols are asked to continue to submit requests for amendments or extensions using the PDF forms available on the IRB website.
If you have any questions, please contact Sharon Ruggirello at irb@csuchico.edu.
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Provost Larson's Welcome Message for Fall 2021
August 26, 2021
Debra Larson, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs
Colleagues,

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the wildfires, the rebuilding of the fall schedule (five times!), and other unanticipated surprises over the past year, our campus has persisted and remained resilient as we successfully worked to fulfil our mission of helping our students succeed! We did it! You did it! I am forever grateful to each and every one of you for getting us through 2020-2021, and welcome you to the 2021-2022 academic year. I look forward as we continue to adapt the delivery of our mission while living in the time of COVID.

I would like to thank several units that, over the past eighteen months, have been providing an astonishing amount of support and trainings. The tremendous efforts by the Office of Academic Personnel (OAPL), the Teaching and Learning Program (TLP), Faculty Development (FDEV), and Information Technology Support Services (ITSS) were phenomenal. Their work (and more) allowed the Division of Academic Affairs to make important shifts, important not only to last year’s virtual pivot, but also for moving forward. We are now utilizing technology more fully to simplify processes and enhance teaching and learning.
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Required Ethics Training
August 26, 2021
Debra Larson, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs
Good morning,
Please see the below memos from Provost Larson regarding required ethics training related to research. Please note these are both effective immediately.
Required Ethics Training for Human Subjects Research (PDF)
Required Ethics in Vertebrate Animal Research Training (PDF)
Best wishes for a great semester!
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Chico State COIL Faculty Learning Community - Fall 2021
August 24, 2021
Jennifer Gruber, Interim Associate Vice President of International Education & Global Engagement
Dear Faculty,
International Education and Global Engagement (IEGE) is offering an opportunity to participate in a faculty learning community (FLC) this fall to assist professors with the implementation of (COIL) (Collaborative Online International Education) as a course component on our campus. COIL engages your classes with students across the world in the discussion, group projects, and/or problem-solving, and professors have the opportunity to collaborate in teaching with their colleagues across the world. This project is supported through Chico State's strategic priority initiative.
Compensation
IEGE is offering compensation ($500 taxable payment) to faculty who attend a SUNY COIL Foundations or Elements Workshop, complete all of the deliverables (Google Doc) for COIL implementation at Chico State, and report on success. If interested, please complete this brief application form for the Fall 2021 FLC. The COIL FLC will meet once a month for one hour.
Workshops and FLC
Additionally, IEGE will pay for each member of the FLC to attend a SUNY Workshop in Foundations, Elements, or Design offered in October.
Contact COIL Coordinators, Drs. Sara Trechter strechter@csuchico.edu or Jennifer Gruber jlgruber@csuchico.edu for questions, or registration information if you wish to take a workshop beginning October 4.
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EOC Talking Points
August 19, 2021
Debra Larson, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs
Please review this document provided by the EOC (PDF) for you to share with your faculty and staff. It is intended to provide timely information on the start of the school year in the time of living with COVID.
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Student to Student COVID Messaging
August 19, 2021
Debra Larson, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs
Dear colleagues,
Members of the EOC recently met with Duncan and Taryn from AS Government to discuss their assistance in Student to Student COVID messaging at the beginning of the semester. They are working together to generate some talking points to serve as a prompt as a part of their classroom visits.
We would like to share this opportunity with the Deans/Chairs/faculty to schedule a visit. They have created a Google Sheet sign-up for faculty here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfnJZN6gK2QoI7uXSwhuzel5MnsZvxhYx59TY-L5i2chw2CVw/viewform(opens in new window)
The EOC are hoping to get the AS Officers in as many classrooms as possible in the first few weeks of the semester, so we would like to urge you to share this with your faculty as soon as possible.
Thank you.
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