Faculty Professional Development Focus Groups

Thank you for your interest in participating in a Faculty Professional Development Focus Groups. This year, the Office of the Vice Provost for Faculty is collecting feedback from faculty about their professional development experience here at CMU. Faculty can participate in either (or both) a survey or focus group.

Description

The focus groups are facilitated by a team from the Office of the Vice Provost for Faculty and are designed to learn more about faculty experiences with professional development at CMU throughout their career and how our office can further support faculty during their time at CMU.

During the focus group, we will ask several questions about your experience as a faculty member at CMU. Focus groups will be broadly organized by years of experience and include a mix of faculty across disciplines and tracks. Data collected from the focus group will be used internally by the Office of the Vice Provost for Faculty to refine existing programs and/or create new opportunities to support faculty. Our office may share a summary of findings from the survey and focus group with other CMU leaders and offices. All collected data will be anonymous.

Eligibility

Focus groups are for non-visiting faculty from all schools/colleges, track, rank, full-time, and from any CMU location. For the purpose of this focus group, we are looking for:

• Faculty - Faculty include tenure, teaching, research, librarian tracks, and special faculty. Although some postdocs have a title "special faculty", postdocs and graduate students are not eligible to participate in focus groups at this time. Staff are also not eligible for the focus groups.
• Full time - Faculty are employed full time at the university as opposed to part time faculty. Note that some departments consider "full time" to have different teaching/research loads. Full time is as defined by your department. Part time faculty are not eligible for the focus group. 
• Non-visiting faculty - We are looking to understand the experience of faculty who plan to continue at CMU and not faculty who are in a "visiting" position.

Application & Selection

To be considered for the Faculty Professional Development Focus Group, please submit this form by March 15, 2026. Our aim is to include as many interested faculty as possible in the focus groups, while also ensuring respresentation from faculty across the university.

To do so, after the deadline, we will review responses to select a mix of participants to represent different schools/colleges, departments, track, and years of experience. We notify individuals of their selection by email. We invite faculty to hold the time on the calendar in case they are selected to participate.

If you are not eligible, not available for the indicated times, or not selected for the focus groups, we would still like to hear your perspective and invite you to participate in our Faculty Professional Development Survey by March 15th.

Contact Information

We value your input and time. For any questions, please contact the Office of the Vice Provost for Faculty at vpfaculty@andrew.cmu.edu. Thank you again for your time and interest.

Focus Group Sessions

Our goal is to understand professional development needs for faculty at different stages in their career. For this reason, we will offer four focus group sessions based on faculty experience level:

• "Just Getting Started" - for faculty who are just beginning or early on in their career, ~0-3 years of experience as a faculty member, in-person only
• "Establishing Yourself" - for faculty who have a bit more experience, ~4-8 years of experience as a faculty member, in-person only
• "Thinking Long Term" - for faculty who have more experience and are thinking about next steps, ~9+ years of experience as a faculty member, in-person only
• All levels (Zoom) - this option is for faculty from non-Pittsburgh locations or for faculty who cannot attend one of the other sessions, it will include faculty from all experience levels, Zoom only

If attending an in person session, faculty are asked to attend the session that best describes their experience level. If you are unable to attend the given session in person, faculty can participate in the Zoom session. 

If none of these options align with your schedule, faculty are encouraged to still provide their feedback through our Faculty Professional Development Needs Survey by March 15th. Faculty are welcome to complete either or both the survey and the focus group.

Background Information

Please note that we are collecting background information to help us organize our focus groups and identify collectively which faculty groups are represented in the focus groups (e.g., by location, college, track, and experience level). If you attend a focus group, all responses will remain anonymous.