National Center for Faculty Development & Diversity

The University of Minnesota is proud to be an institutional member of the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity (NCFDD) since 2016. The NCFDD is a nationally recognized center dedicated to helping faculty, post-docs, and graduate students make successful transitions throughout their academic careers. They provide professional development and mentoring through a host of resources that are applicable across all fields of inquiry.

Benefits of Individual Membership

Our institutional membership means that all faculty, post-docs, and graduate students from any of our system campuses have access to NCFDD resources at no cost. The benefits of activating your individual membership, and engaging with the available resources, can include greater success with getting published, securing grants, increased confidence as a scholar, and healthier relationships with colleagues. Membership includes access to:

  • The Monday Motivator (weekly email including productivity tips)
  • Monthly core curriculum, guest expert webinars, and multi-week courses
  • The Career Center resources
  • Audio and video recordings, slides and transcripts from all webinars
  • Moderated monthly writing challenges and monthly mentor matches
  • Discounted Faculty Success Program registration
  • Online accountability and tracking software to alumni of the Faculty Success Program
  • Private discussion forum for peer-mentoring and problem solving

Activate Your UMN Individual Membership:

  1. Visit www.FacultyDiversity.org/Join
  2. Select your UMN campus name from the dropdown list of institutions
  3. Select “Activate My Membership”
  4. Fill in your account information
  5. You will receive a welcome email within 24 business hours confirming that your account is active and that you can access NCFDD resources

Faculty Success Program

The Faculty Success Program (FSP) is the NCFDD's intensive virtual boot camp designed for tenure-track and tenured faculty who are looking to increase research and writing productivity while maintaining a healthy work-life balance. This 12-week program offers intensive coaching, weekly small group sessions, time tracking tools, master coach sessions, and peer support. UMN faculty have been uniformly positive about their experience in this program. Here is some feedback from past participants:

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"The Faculty Success program was the best investment that I’ve ever made in my career. I’ve been introduced to tools that have helped me increase productivity, improve work/life balance, navigate professional boundaries, and learn from the expertise of others who have been in the same situation as me. The small group sessions gave me a safe space and supportive environment to discuss the challenges that come with balancing tenure-track requirements and family life."

— Laura Palombi, College of Pharmacy

A woman wearing a black shirt smiling in front of a brick building.

"This program has built a strong foundation for my future at the UMN. I have increased my resources creating a national network of other faculty. I have developed writing practices which have allowed me to write with less anxiety, write more often, and produce more scholarship. Finally, I have learned how to manage my day to day work-load to ensure I am completing all my required goals in research, teaching and service."

— Jessica Lopez Lyman, College of Liberal Arts

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"Through the FSP, I gained invaluable planning/prioritizing and time-management skills and improved my prior skills. Already - I think in part thanks to the program - I have had a number of successful grant applications over the summer, have made progress on several manuscripts, and have done all this while also taking care of my personal life and maintaining a higher degree of overall happiness."

— Vlad Pribiag, College of Science & Engineering

"The program underscores the importance of structuring one's research time by devising (1) a strategic plan for each semester (2) a weekly planning implementing the strategic plan and (3) building accountability into one's plan. This is important because it yields a more realistic view of what can actually be achieved during the term while also giving the incentive and tools for reaching the stated goals."

— Christian Uwe, College of Liberal Arts

The Faculty Success Program is offered during the fall, spring, and summer and does incur an additional cost. Faculty members can pay for this program on their own, seek departmental and/or collegiate support, or apply for support from Faculty & Academic Affairs in partnership with their college. Faculty & Academic Affairs will pay half of the tuition for a limited number of tenure-track faculty who submit an application by the deadline. Learn more about the program and find application instructions HERE.

About the NCFDD1

Founded in 2010, the National Center for Faculty Development & Diversity is an independent professional development, training, and mentoring community for faculty members, postdocs, and graduate students. They are 100% dedicated to supporting academics in making successful transitions throughout their careers. Over the past ten years, they have:

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  • Partnered with 230+ colleges and universities as institutional members
  • Mentored 6,000+ faculty members in their Faculty Success and Post-Tenure Pathfinders Programs where their empirically-grounded methods improve productivity with the support of intense accountability, coaching, and peer support,
  • Facilitated more than 350 workshops both on-campus and virtually
  • Hosted 50,000+ academic writers in our 14-Day Challenges; and
  • Supported over 175,000 academics online through their Core Curriculum and their monthly guest-expert webinars and multi-week courses.

1 Information is adapted from https://www.facultydiversity.org