The entire Interfolio team was thrilled and grateful to hold the fourth annual Interfolio Summit on June 16-17, 2022—the year’s premier online conference for university faculty affairs professionals.
This year’s conference drew over 1,000 registrants from a diverse array of institutions to seven sessions over the two days. The presentations and gathering brought out remarkable stories of leadership, collaboration, and evolution.
As this year’s Summit happened to come on the heels of our proud announcement that Interfolio has been acquired by Elsevier, we were happy to provide the audience with a lively fireside chat between Interfolio CEO Andrew Rosen and Theo Pillay, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Institutional Products at Elsevier, moderated by Elvin Freytes, Co-Founder of The EdUp Experience.
Insightful, Professional Dialogue on Modern Faculty Affairs Challenges
As with the past three years, the 2022 Summit gave professionals in faculty affairs, and others who work directly with faculty information—such as HR, IT, or institutional research—a rare chance to share what’s working and what’s not.
The audience got to hear a fascinating and compassionate keynote presentation, grounded in data and decades of instructional experience, from C. Edward Watson, PhD, Associate Vice President for Curricular and Pedagogical Innovation at the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U).
Dr. Watson’s talk reinforced a core observation steering Interfolio’s mission: The universities truly positioned for success are those that treat faculty success as a strategic area of investment on its own.
Thoughtful conversations throughout the Summit explored this fundamental centrality of faculty work in greater detail—in terms of faculty recruitment, faculty tenure and evaluation processes, and faculty activity reporting on data.
Success Stories, Top Tips: Using Interfolio for Varied Faculty Affairs Processes
A unique benefit that attendees get from the annual Summit is the chance to hear peers’ experiences implementing and using the Interfolio Faculty Information System.
This year was no exception, with candid accounts from institutions as diverse as the University of Colorado School of Medicine, Columbia University, Colby College, and others of varying sizes.
Attendees got to hear peers using Interfolio speak to questions like:
- What challenges originally drove your adoption of the Interfolio Faculty Information System and your expansion to additional modules?
- What connection do you see between having a dedicated faculty evaluations platform and the success of faculty members in their roles?
- What do you see working (and not working) around achieving diversity and equity in faculty hiring outcomes, and inclusivity throughout the process?
- With Interfolio in the picture, what improved ability does your institution have—or anticipate having—in terms of telling a story about faculty impact?
A New World: Evolving Ways for Faculty Affairs to Drive, Convey Faculty Impact
And finally, the 2022 Summit made clear that the community of faculty affairs professionals is highly active in using new tools to champion the full impact that scholars make at their institutions.
As Dr. Watson had related in the keynote, the vital work that university faculty do extends far beyond publishing journal articles, appearing at conferences, and teaching time-honored courses—important though all of those are.
Attendees to the Summit got a uncommon chance to hear how faculty affairs and other university offices are able to:
- Tell a data-driven story about faculty outreach across their state
- Enable recruitment of faculty members with relevant experience and background to serve underrepresented students well
- Participate fully and effectively in committee evaluations of colleagues—from anywhere
- Identify experts for collaboration, grants, and community engagement
- And make other critical strategic contributions
We’re grateful to everyone who spoke and participated in the 2022 Interfolio Virtual Summit.
Our work continues throughout the year!
- Check out our original findings from surveying 600 faculty members
- Keep an eye out for our monthly webinars that keep the success stories going
- Or request a demo of Interfolio for your office, school, or institution
Interfolio and Your Institution
Estimate the Working Hours You Could Give Back to Your Faculty and Staff Around Academic Personnel Processes
Hundreds of universities use Interfolio to free up a massive number of hours for faculty and staff.
Interfolio has developed a detailed model to calculate the amount of avoidable time that any university is spending on inefficient faculty affairs processes, including:
- Faculty recruitment (confidential letters, committee review, advertisement)
- Promotion/tenure/evaluation processes (distributing materials, committee review,
- packet compilation)
- Appointment tracking (promotion/tenure timelines, sabbatical eligibility, dual status)
- Faculty activity reporting (CV updates, workload tracking, accreditation)
The model accounts for dozens of real-world actions that take up valuable time at most universities.
Get in touch today to find out how you can increase your institution’s impact—by moving one or more of these processes onto the widely used Interfolio Faculty Information System.