Tips for Chairs: Promote UC San Diego’s Institutional Membership in NCFDD to Foster Productivity and Collegiality in Your Department

What is NCFDD?

NCFDD complements other mentoring programs on campus by providing intensive professional development for faculty at all levels through online training, mentoring and resources.UC San Diego is already an institutional member of NCFDD, and any faculty member can opt-in to activate their individual membership at no additional cost.

What are the benefits of membership?

NCFDD helps academics be the most effective and productive they can be with the limited time they have, while balancing the demands of research, teaching, service, and personal life. Member services include the following:

  • Monthly Tele-Workshops – Members can learn at their convenience. A calendar is available online at
  • Weekly emails that reinforce the core ideas of the Tele-Workshops.
  • Monthly Writing Challenges.
  • Private online space to network, share, peer-mentor, problem-solve, and organize local writing groups
  • Other: Career Center (post/search job listings), multi-week courses, and library.

In addition, for an additional fee per person, NCFDD offers the widely acclaimed Faculty Success Program, an intensive 15-week virtual boot camp.For more information on that program, visit

How can the NCFDD support efforts to build a stronger department?

NCFDD membership helps build stronger and more productive departments by giving faculty the skills, understanding, and resources they need to succeed in their academic careers. Those who understand how to navigate and meet the demands of the academy are more likely to get tenure or promoted. Moreover, by helping them manage their time and balance priorities, NCFDD can help accelerate the productivity of all faculty members. NCFDD can be especially helpful to junior faculty members working toward tenure. It can also be used as a tool to support recruitment and retention efforts, as well as mentorship.

How can I promote and maximize the benefits of NCFDD membership in my department?

Here are several ways that Chairs can promote the benefits of NCFDD membership in their departments.

  1. Become a Member! If you are personally familiar with NCFDD workshops and services, you’ll be better positioned to discuss them and promote them to faculty, post-docs, and graduate students in your department.
  1. Actively Describe NCFDD Membership at Events and Meetings. It sounds simple, but consistent reminders go a long way in driving usage. It helps considerably when Deans and Department Chairs are active in spreading the word about NCFDD Institutional Membership at relevant events such as faculty development workshops and meetings of Deans andDepartment Heads. Also, consider emailing faculty to remind them about the membership at the beginning of the school year.

Orientations for new faculty and new graduate students are a great opportunity to provide information on NCFDD and ensure that everyone is aware of the Institutional Membership. EDI can provide handouts and other marketing materials that describe NCFDD resources and that can be easily distributed.

  1. Host NCFDD Tele-Workshops and Webinars on Campus. Organize brownbags around NCFDD Tele-Workshops on topicsthat faculty might find important or helpful. For example, a workshop on time management may be helpful at the start of the academic year. This not only gets a group of people to participate in the workshops, but it also allows them to process the content together and build a supportive collegial environment. Consider hosting a workshop at the beginning each quarter, which encourages faculty to start the academic quarter off right, and also serves as a reminder thatthis resource is available.
  1. Embed NCFDD Resources within Existing Faculty Development Activities. Consider NCFDD as a complement to what your department is currently doing to advance faculty development. Perhaps there are ways to embed NCFDD resources in what you are already doing. For example, if you have a mentoring program, you could share information on NCFDD mentoring resources with mentors and mentees.
  1. Sponsor a Faculty Success Program. Consider sponsoring participation in the Faculty Success Program (virtual boot camp). EDI has sponsored two groups of faculty that included assistant and associate professors, and participants gave very positive feedbackon the value of the boot camp.Although the program is designed to benefit faculty at all levels, it could especially benefit junior faculty andnew hires (and included in an offer package).
  1. Start a small mentoring or workinggroup around NCFDD for juniorfaculty, postdoc scholars, or graduate students. In 2013, the Division of Arts and Humanities piloted a successful mentoring program for assistant professors in their first and second yearsand a select group of graduate students. The group met monthly to discuss the lessons learned in the NCFDD online workshops. These monthly group meetings, which oftentook placeover lunch, provided accountability and support, and also helped build community within the division. Members had the following comments to say about the mentoring program:
  • “Another member of the group and I have begun to write religiously together, and we both feel that our level of productivity has increased greatly for that reason.”
  • “Overall, I think that my participation in the program has made me feel more confident and less overwhelmed about getting tenure.”
  • “The curriculum emphasized seemingly basic but often under-taught academic survival skills like managing your time effectively, developing and executing weekly and semester plans, and the importance of accountability mechanisms and maintaining daily writing habits.”

Similar groups can be easily replicated at a division or department level with little to no cost.