Knowledge Nexus aims to empower new faculty with research capabilities

Snakes and spiders aside, though, this detail isn’t especially surprising. Anyone who’s ever started a new position knows that the experience can summon serious bouts of anxiety.

Academics have a few additional stressors to contend with, too, with university positions often involving relocation to a new city, encountering entrenched workplace cultures and navigating a heap of system operations that can be labyrinthine at best — usually while trying to pull together curriculum at the start of a new semester.

Brittany Hayes knows this experience firsthand. An associate professor in the University of Cincinnati’s School of Criminal Justice (part of the College of Education, Criminal Justice, Human Services, and Information Technology), she accepted a position with UC following time in New York and Texas, starting in Cincinnati in 2020.   

“You come to a new place, and you’ve got no idea where to go and what’s available,” says Hayes. “You do an orientation, but that’s three days. You’ve just moved here, you’re trying to get ready for class … it’s so overwhelming!”

This lived experience, as well as observation of her onboarding peers, led Hayes to develop the Knowledge Nexus, a series of workshops — presented in partnership with the Associate Dean of Education Innovations and Community Partnerships, and the Associate Dean of Academic Affairs (Dean’s Office, CECH) — that outline common intricacies of research development at CECH and UC, which, as an R1 institution, absolutely values research activity.

“When you start at a new university, there’s lots of offices and lots of people,” she explains. “And when you’re conducting research, it’s not always clear who those people are and who can help with what task. CECH has a lot of things that can support faculty in those endeavors, and so it’s getting people on-ramped earlier so that they can really build up that research agenda.”

Potential topics for the Knowledge Nexus curriculum include grant supports and processes, university rules and policies, Institutional Research Board relations, infographics and marketing, research in the classroom, accessible research, mentoring, navigating difficult conversations and more.

How this information is presented, though, brings in the program’s second objective — namely, providing opportunities for new faculty members to just hang out. “We’ve got a bunch of workshops, and then we’ve got some community events just to have fun and get together,” explains Hayes. “Especially for folks who are moving to a new city and don’t know anyone, sometimes it’s nice to just have a place to go on Friday night where you know someone will be.”

The kickoff event took place on September 13 at Oakley Greens. Hayes explains that, while the program is an ideal way for new hires to meet colleagues in a constructive environment, the workshop presentations also hold networking value for faculty members who joined the university over the past few years.

All this is personal for Hayes, who notes that she specifically chose UC as an employer based on the institution’s reputation for deep community connections. “Creating a supportive environment is central to CECH’s mission, and this is just one spot where we can create that support around research and the different dimensions of research."

Though the Knowledge Nexus is a work in progress, with Hayes and her team determining what workshops to include even while organizing and presenting events, the eventual objective is an annually recurring workshop program. She also hopes to compile a resource that incoming faculty can access to more seamlessly transition into research at the university.

“A long-term goal is to make a toolkit for new faculty,” she explains. “I think each of these events has a product that comes from it, and we can start to compile them so that next year we’ve got it all in one space.”

While Hayes’ Knowledge Nexus stands to ease the transition for incoming faculty members, especially those moving to Cincinnati from outside the region, the program also presents an easier onramp into research at the university level. And this innovative approach is, in fact, somewhat novel in academia.   

“I think we see it at a university level, but we don’t see it at a college level,” she says. “And sometimes we miss that in-between level where we do a lot of our work. So this brings that connection to the folks who are going to be supporting you in that process and really trying to think about the day-to-day operations.”

Featured image at top: Faculty and staff members attend a Knowledge Nexus event in the Teachers-Dyer Complex. (Photo by Brittany Hayes)