November 1, 2024
Contact: Anisa Zvonkovic  | 706-542-4879  | More about Anisa
Message from Dean Zvonkovic 
I wanted to recap key messages for you to take away from the College Assembly last week. I appreciated the high attendance and the level of engagement with the information at the meeting.  
Foremost, we had an engaging presentation and activity related to safety. We worked through 4 scenarios: (1) a gas leak; (2) an armed individual in the building; (3) someone sleeping in the building; and (4) theft of computers.  
The FACS Administrative Cabinet will continue to work through the scenarios with an emphasis on communicating to FACS folks throughout safety crises. The FACS Executive Committee also did a debrief of the meeting and you can expect the department heads and directors to have information for you about how we want to ensure that everyone within office areas is notified of evacuations and emergencies. 
Another takeaway is that many resources can be found at emergency.uga.edu. In addition to the UGA Safe app that I hope everyone has, I suggest everyone download the PDF that is available here: https://safeandsecure.uga.edu/ (click on download pdf), print it, and have it available at your work station. 
Other key messages 
The key messages I presented about the college related to new resources that we have procured – from the state, from donors, and from the university – in recognition of our successes in fulfilling our mission:  
  1. IHDD within FACS is the home of the new David Ralston Center for Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities, a state-funded initiative to improve the pipeline of professionals who work with individuals with these conditions and to inform community members about these conditions with empirically-based information. This center is funded by the state of Georgia. Zo Stoneman is leading this effort. There will be more information to come about curriculum efforts here at UGA and activities across the state.We are excited and grateful to the legislature and governor for their recognition of what we do in FACS to promote well-being. 
  2. A major donation by Anne Barge Clegg has resulted in the naming and endowing of the Anne Barge Historic Clothing and Textile Collection, which is housed in the UGA Special Collections Libraries. Under the direction of curator Monica Sklar, this donation allows us to continue digitizing the collection, enhancing its use as a resource for scholars, students, and community members worldwide.  
  3. FACS, over the past two years, has achieved success in proposals for new faculty positions that align with Presidential Hiring Priorities. We have hires in place for the cluster of Computational Social Science (that I proposed in collaboration with Social Work and Public Health), and I’ve organized a meet-up of those hires to occur next week. I think it’s important to make good on our proposal for collaborations, interdisciplinary work, and connections among the colleges. This year, thanks to Nutritional Sciences and Human Development and Family Science department heads Connie Rogers and April Few-Demo, we proposed a cluster in the area of childhood adversity (in which we already have demonstrated strengths), and we are currently searching for new faculty for those positions. I am especially grateful for the recognition of what we do in FACS! 
  4. Lastly, I presented information that our student credit hours in the college have increased 15% over the past two years. The total number of majors is also up. This is a strong testament to the efforts of the Student Success and Advising Center, the We Are FACS student recruitment campaign, and to the faculty and staff across the college. I am grateful to each of you who has played a role, and I know we will continue to share all the good news about FACS. 
FACS Associate Dean for Research 
We are on schedule with the search for FACS’s first Associate Dean for Research search. Associate Dean Allisen Penn chairs the search committee.  The search committee members are Margaret O’Brien Caughy, Hamida Jinnah, Kandice Mitchell, Orion Mowbray (Social Work), Robert Pazdro, and Yoo-Kyoung Seock. The plan is to have on-campus interviews the first two weeks of December. The tentative schedule is: 
Candidate One – December 2-4 
Candidate Two – December 4-6 
Candidate Three – December 8-10 
Candidate Four – December 10-12 
NIH Deadlines 
Dear faculty, if you are considering submitting to the upcoming winter deadlines for NIH, please reach out to Jessica Hudgins, Pre-Award Grants Manager (jessica.hudgins@uga.edu) by December 1. There are always more delays around the holiday season, so please get in touch!    
R01 Research Grants: February 5 
K01 Research Career Development: Feb. 12 
R21 Other Research Grants: Feb. 16 
Staff Performance Management Process 
University Human Resources is launching a new Staff Performance Management process in January 2025 through the Professional Education Portal (PEP). This new process aligns with the UGA Staff Competency Model introduced in 2019 and includes optional features for goal-tracking and skills enhancement to support employees' career growth. 
  
It is critical that both supervisors and staff employees understand this new process. University HR has provided two trainings (highlighted below) that must be completed by December 15: One for staff employees and one for supervisors of staff employees. 
  
  • Required Staff Training: All staff must complete the “Intro to UGA’s New Performance Process” training before December 15 to be able to access their evaluations in PEP. This course explains the new evaluation criteria, rating scale, and process changes. 
  • Supervisor Training: Supervisors can also access the PEP course “Performance Evaluation Refresher for Supervisors,” which highlights the essential information necessary to complete a performance evaluation in PEP. 
Upcoming events 
Oct 28-Nov 8 – Open Enrollment 
Nov 28-29 – Thanksgiving Holiday 
Dec 4 – Reading Day 
Dec 12 – FACS Convocation 
Dec 13 – UGA Graduation 
Sincerely,   
Anisa M. Zvonkovic 
Dean and Georgia Athletic Association Professor in Family and Consumer Sciences 
Tags: college update • dean's update