 I think since we we have one short hour we will go ahead and get started so my name is Christina Hendricks I'm the Academic Director of the Center for Teaching, Learning, and Technology and I want to welcome you to this session on nominating or being a nominee for a 3M Nationals Teaching Fellow Award. I want to go over a couple of logistics and then I will introduce Simon Bates to to give a bit of an introduction as well. So a couple of logistics. First of all let me see if I can share my screen. Okay so this is where you're at. Hope you're in the right place celebrating Teaching Excellence, nominating your 3M National Teaching Fellow. A little bit of what we're doing with Zoom today so we are recording the session so audio and video will be recorded and shared publicly with some minor edits like we're going to cut out that beginning when we're all just sort of waiting for people to come. Discussions in the chat room if you give them to everyone will not be shared publicly they'll be recorded just for the sake of us creating some notes from the session but in the chat you can do either to everyone or you can do to an individual if you just send it to an individual like to one of the moderators who I'll introduce in a moment that recorded so if you want something to if you want to ask something but don't want to be named publicly you could do it that way you could do it in the chat because that will not come out in the recording. Just to give you a couple more logistics if you're not speaking please mute yourself because it can get pretty loud with background noise and we do have a host Carissa Block who will be potentially if there's a lot of noise might end up muting you if you have forgotten to do that. The chat moderators are Judy Chan, Judy can give a wave Judy Chan will be there answering questions or taking in questions for anything related to 3M and we also have Carissa Block who will be taking questions or concerns that are related to technology so you could just do a chat to everyone if you want to or you can do a chat individually to Judy Chan or Carissa Block. Carissa I think has already but may again share the attendance form I can't with Zoom apparently see the chat at the same time so I'm sharing my screen so I can't see if it's in there already so please fill out the attendance form and at the end we'll be asking you to fill out a feedback form so Judy will share that link at the end of the session. So I'd like to introduce Simon Bates to give a brief introduction he is the associate provost teaching and learning at University of British Columbia Vancouver. Thank you Christina good morning everyone it's really nice to see all of you I logged on and thought these are some of my very favorite people here so some not all of my favorite people but many many often. It's really nice to have this opportunity to connect in these most precedented of times just looking at the the video wall I just want to point out it may look like myself and Catherine Raun are in the same room because of the decor behind us right I can assure you we are appropriately socially distanced by about 50 kilometers I would guess but there we go everyone's everyone's showing their apart from Judy everyone's showing their true background rather than a fake background so if this was an exam we'd have to do a room scan to make sure that Catherine and I really weren't in the same room for collaborating. Anyway it's my pleasure to sort of kick off this discussion it's also a great pleasure to be having a conversation that's not about immediate planning scenarios for COVID-19 so it's nice to see that some semblance of business as usual with the 3M national teaching fellow process is able to to continue. I don't have too much to say except to welcome all the 3M fellows that we've got from UBC on the call today it is a self-nomination process so essentially anyone can decide to put themselves forward what Christina and I have been working on in the past couple of years is putting a little bit more support and scaffolding at the beginning of that process that people might embark on and this webinar is one of the ways that we've been trying to put a little bit more information up front if you like as to helping people understand the process and ideas for what makes a successful application but the best people really to to speak to that are the fellows themselves. Just in terms of the process as you know there's a an institutional letter that gets written from the provost's office and so that's where I've had the opportunity to interact with with many of the fellows who were on the call today. So that's really all I had to say welcome happy to be part of this this conversation and I will turn it back to Christina to introduce the panelists. Great thank you Simon. So we do have a set of questions that we've preset for the panelists but at the same time you should be able to interject with your questions in the chat and we can get to them. I'm trying very hard to reserve enough time at the end to get to your questions as well so it looks like we're getting a little bit too far into our preset questions and we're running out of time then we'll we'll just move to your questions. So I want to start off by introducing our national 3M national teaching fellows. So we've got a couple a number of people on the call today and there's also a couple of people who are 3M fellows at EBC who could not make it today. But on the call we have Tiffany Potter who's from the English language and literature department who won in 2020. She's a professor of teaching and also the associate head of curriculum and planning. We have Paul Kubin from the Scottish School of Business who also won in 2020. So these two recently got their awards which is wonderful. Paul is a lecturer and in marketing and behavioral science division and also the assistant dean of innovation. Stephen Barnes won last year from psychology. He is a associate professor of teaching. Well I think maybe those titles are official July 1st but I'm still using them now. Maya Kerzik from land and food systems in 2016. Maya is an associate professor of applied biology and forest and conservation sciences. Peter Ostafichuk from mechanical engineering from 2015. Professor of teaching. Darren Dahl, Sotter School of Business from 2013. Professor and a senior associate dean faculty and director of the Robert H. Lee graduate school. And Simon Ellis from forestry also won in 2013 who's an associate professor and program director of the BSC wood products processing program. Now other 3M teaching fellows who are at UBC who could not make it today are Sarah Harris from earth and ocean sciences and also the associate dean academic and faculty of science. And Anthony Clark from curriculum and pedagogy in the school of education. So those are our fellows, our panelists today. We have 8 questions. Don't know if we're going to get through them all. But they range from when what you consider being nominated for the fellowship, how might you prepare? When did you start preparing? What aspects of the process did you find challenging? So these are our questions. Thank you very much Simon for pointing that out. So I don't know that we'll get to all eight, but we will start going through them one by one. And I've asked our panelists to focus on one question, possibly two depending on the time that we have. Okay, so our first question. When in one's career might one consider being nominated for this fellowship? So I'm asking Maya, my crusade to get us started on this question on her answer. Thank you, Christine. And thank you everybody for coming. I'll try to be short. The short answer to this question is, you should start preparing when you feel ready that you have enough material to present a compelling and winning case. Specifically, when is that going to be for each of us is different? Some people might achieve that point earlier than others. I would say based on just informal look around who were the fellows at the time when I won and who attended the conference in 2016. I would say that most people were kind of mid career, but they were also people who were either younger or older than that. So it really depends on it. It is really based on having compelling case, not that there is a specific right time to apply. Great. Peter, do you have any other thoughts on this question? Yeah, I would agree with what Maya said. I think we often hear described as it's not a lifetime achievement award. So it's not a late career. It's difficult, very early career because you don't have that history behind you. I made a little graphic. I don't know if people can see my screen. I was looking off in the other direction, a little bit creating this visual aid. But if that's kind of career trajectory, if you're able to see my video there, and you're thinking about time in career, you know, we don't start at zero, but we kind of plateau throughout the stage of our career. I kind of almost think of it as the 3M is kind of a bit of a boost here in your career, like kind of a mid career point. It gives you a little bit of a kick that that elevates things a little further. So yeah, I'd echo what Maya said. It depends on the person. It's not late career. It's not very early career. It's generally somewhere in the middle. Great. Anybody else from the panel? Want to add? Yeah, I just wanted to say that there's, I mean, you know, I have a degree with both other panelists. There's also times during your career where it's actually more convenient to do it. That is it's there's less work involved. So this is right after, for example, you've created a tenure package right after you've created a promotion package. A lot of that work, it's going to be you still need to do a lot of work on it, but a lot of that work can be can be used when you do your 3M application as well. And it also helps your nominator because they have that entire tenure package and promotion package in front of them to write all of their stuff, which is a lot. So it helps them as well. Great. Thanks. So let's move on to question number two. How might one prepare for being potentially nominated in a few years? What should one work on in order to see a successful fellowship later? So I've got Simon Ellis as first on this one. First of all, Christine, I just want to say you mentioned two other fellows who weren't on the call. I think there's a total of about 20 of us in total at UBC. So there's as many not on the call as on the call. They go back to, wow, a while ago, the first person who won it. So it's interesting when Christina sent around who had been assigned to each of these questions. I thought, damn, I got that one because I don't actually think it's that good a question because I would hope that those people who are thinking about putting a package in the next couple of years aren't, you know, that isn't the sole guiding light to what they do over the next two years in terms of, you know, should I do this because it will help my package? Yes or no? I think ultimately, you know, you get to a point where you have a body of work that is accumulated and you're doing this stuff because it's what you believe in and it's what your professional life is about. So yes, I mean, absolutely seek out educational leadership opportunities because that's really the important part of a package. So yes, you have to be a good teacher, primarily in the undergraduate field, as far as applications are concerned. But it really is the educational leadership part that I think starts to put people apart from other applications. So yeah, to take on seek out and take on leadership, educational leadership opportunities. But because it's what you're doing in your professional life, and it's what you you believe in, rather than is this going to make my application better? I'd hope that's what people why people are doing this, because I think what's important in an application, and this is stealing one of your Darren parts of your question, sorry. But you know, what what is important as a narrative and a theme throughout applications, I think, so it's not just a bunch of stuff in long lists to say look at what I've done. It's Simon's life and I mean, it's, it's a story. It's a kind of internally consistent story that allows you to be distinguished from some of the other applicants. There's 40 to 50 applicants each year, I think, and there's 10 of these awarded. And so it's making yourself to be, you know, your personality to come out of you, like your educational personality to come out. So please don't do don't spend the next two years, you know, living your life just to get your application in a better package, hopefully say just what you do in your professional career will will lead into that body of work. Great, thank you. That's great. Tiffany, do you have any thing to add on this one? What I realized when I was putting mine together was that I think the communities became what became increasingly obvious to me as I was both I did my professor of teaching a file about six months before we started the 3M file. And what I realized is that the communities were absolutely essential to the difference between full disclosure. I was actually nominated three times. This is not a speedy process. I mean, I'm, you know, I'm one would like to be so amazing and wonderful and maybe Paul and Simon and others are. But, you know, I went through, you know, my my department has a very energetic nominator. She was amazing and insistent. But I think that what I realized the difference between my first file and my third file was the communities I was part of. And that what my third file really a ton of really big things that I was part of that I was supporting and continuing almost none of us do these big projects by ourselves. And so I think we're thinking I mean, again, I totally agree with Simon that we're not doing this to get an award. But the difference between my first very much unsuccessful file and my and my third successful one was the communities I was part of. So it seems to me that that if you're thinking both to professor of teaching and to 3M, it seems to me those are really important elements. Great. Thank you. Move on to question three. When did you as a nominee start preparing? And when would you suggest nominees start preparing? Great. So it's Paul as the first first person on this one. Thank you. First, I want to say hi to Tiffany because of COVID-19. We haven't actually met yet. We tried to. And so it's lovely to see you, even if it is on screen. And my congratulations to you. And I can tell you that I was nominated four times. And so for those who are saying when did you start preparing about six years ago? And for those who are laughing. And I'm actually looking to Steven, because I remember sitting in this meeting last last year. And he said, yeah, I wasn't really going to apply. And then somebody kind of told me to and I'm paraphrasing Steven, but it was. And yeah, it's the first time I did it. I didn't feel like it couldn't happen first time, you know, and you put you put a good and successful package together quickly. And the reason I kind of try and contrast that is, is, I think for many people, it will be not the first time around. And, and therefore, you've got to be kind of knowing that this is a long game. And I think it plays a little bit to Simon's point. You're not doing, you're not, you're not doing things to try and be a 3M fellow. You're doing the things you do. And then you're trying to find out how to tell your story in a way which is compelling. And so I mean, you're trying to uncover the and make transparent what others around you, you see. I think that in terms of other suggestions is, is read the website guidance well. I found it surprisingly good and useful. And I mean, it tells you what they're looking for. And so I think a lot of people as well, they try to maybe pass what they've done for some other purpose. And this needs to be started from scratch in my view. Great. Thank you. And Steven, as, as a recent winner as well, do you have things to add? Yeah, so I'll focus on sort of the shorter timeline. Paul's advice is all really good. So I would highly suggest that someone not start any later than July of the year that it's due. If you're preparing an application, even earlier comment related to, you know, there being a certain amount of convenience associated with having prepared a 10 year package or promotion package. As Paul pointed out, that's really, it really, it really needs a lot of modification from that. It's a completely different story. And it is a story, as was pointed out earlier. So thinking and reflecting on what that story is going to be should begin even well before July. And you should probably be thinking about it now, if you're planning to attend apply for the fall. The other thing that you have to bear in mind is the amount of work that your nominator has to do. So the earlier that you get your part done, and you give them the letter writer's name, probably the better, because they're going to be able to provide you some guidance to as to your part of the package based on the letter writers comments and the comments from students that they've seen. Yeah. Good. And let me just add that the last I checked, which was yesterday, the STLHE website did not have a due date for this year's application process yet. But in previous years, it has been in September, as far as I recall. So I think that is likely to be the case as well this year. So the timeline would still be correct. So anybody else from the panelists have anything to add on this one? It might just be worth adding, you know, we're so used to maybe being last minute. And if you see September the 15th, probably going to Simon and asking for the letter of support from the provost on September the 14th wouldn't be that helpful. So there isn't an internal kind of guidance deadline if you actually want that help. I'd say it's important to think about the people you're going to ask to write letters. You need letters from student, former students, for example. And I've had late essays before. You need to make sure you have a lot of time and a lot of cushion and a lot of protection, not just the students, but you're asking a lot of other people to do things for you, which was one of the things I found most difficult. And so early lets them feel like they actually have the time to do what you're asking them to do. Or if they say, I really can't, for you to find an alternative. So I think that being respectful of the amount of work you're asking other people to do means starting early. May I add one thing, since Tiffany mentioned letters, it's not and I completely agree it takes a long time to get the letters. But I found for this application to be even more important than for other awards or applications to just get letters with just very brief idea that you usually give to the people who are writing them. In this case, I thought that it was very important that letters also fit the whole narrative of the application. So it's not just your statement about your leadership, philosophy and teaching philosophy and other bits and pieces that you are hiding is really important that letters fit in the package so that not everybody is saying the same thing. And that takes even longer time because you might have, once you see all the letters, or if you don't see them, but whoever is preparing the package for you who is helping you, if they see that the same thing was said over and over, that happened to me, they had to go back to the people writing letters to rewrite them basically, which lengthens the process. That's an excellent point. Thank you. And we'll get to this, I'll reiterate this again at the end, but in terms of getting a letter from the provost's office, it needs to be, your dossier needs to be ready about a month in advance of the deadlines and sent to Simon basically for that letter. Okay, next question. What aspects of the nomination process did you find challenging and how would you suggest others address those challenges? I have Tiffany up for this one first. Oh, I found so many things challenging. And part of it is my personality and part of it is the task. So if you start with the task, as I said, I had just done my professor of teaching file, which is in many ways this giant accumulation of lists with an essay contest in the middle. And I, you know, so I had just done that, but which meant I had this giant pile of stuff and figuring out with that 50 page limit, what was valuable, what was, as everybody has said, and Simon was just absolutely my mentor through this process. Simon Ellis was my mentor through this process. But the figuring out what your story is, and I know we all keep saying that. And it was really hard. And I'm in English, that's supposed to be my thing. And it was really hard to decide what my story was of the, you know, I mean, I've been here for 20 years of the umpteen projects I've been involved in. What were the ones that really defined what I see as my contribution to teaching and learning at UBC and beyond, one hopes. So that was the first thing was deciding what my story was. And that was actually really hard because it means just jettisoning a ton of things that were really important at the time that I was doing them. And the second thing that Simon told me that was incredibly important was don't overstuff. I had you have all these things. And my first version, I'm embarrassed to admit was just this dense block of text. And it was every word I could possibly squeeze in there into those 50 pages. And I mean, I, I lessened the amount of space between text lines. You know, I mean, I was cramming it all in there and it was in retrospect terrible. And what I realized and the comment on that file, their feed to really not that helpful. But the comment on that file was it was really hard to read. And the comment on my successful file, one of them was it was so enjoyable to read to read this file to feel like we know you and what you do. And so that personalizing of it, photos, you know, a little bit more of a narrative quality. And definitely, my third file had much more of a human quality. And so letting go of my academics need to include everything. And figuring out one of the hardest parts was figuring out how I was going to tell that story. The other part that was and we've all got every person on this call has 100 things they could talk about. So deciding what was important, and how to tell that story and how to air it out, how to give it space was actually really hard for me. And the last, the other thing has perhaps to do with my personality. But I think it's common for a lot of us was it's hard to talk about me. That was finding the line between saying that you've done valuable things and feeling uncomfortable talking about yourself doing valuable things was a hard line for me. And that also came up in the I mean, I'm an English professor, I can do it. But it was it was a challenge for me sort of personally. And it also came up in when we were, you know, involved in the in the generation of letters and asked and having to ask people to take not small chunks of time and give it to me for this thing, for this recognition that I, you know, I'm incredibly grateful for, but I'm still slightly dubious that that I was the one who should have gone. And so so I think those are my those were the things that I personally struggled with. And again, I had guidance from people who were just incredibly helpful in telling me how in giving me permission to not include everything. Thank you, Paul, do you have anything to add? Yeah, but a lot, a lot to agree with as well. I mean, I think listening to Tiffany, it's reminded me that the whole process is actually very humbling. And once you've started, it's hard to stop because you feel like you're letting people down because you've asked people to and you've asked people to support you and they have significantly. And then it's kind of like, wow, you know, I got to do this. And then it's kind of, you know, then it's why people think this about me. But they don't know about all my flaws. So it's a very, I'd say it's a very personal journey in the end. And, you know, each time that I'd put a unsuccessful dossier forward, I then said to Darren, who was my sponsor and champion on this, never again, right, I'm done. Right. And he said, okay, sleep on it for a few months. And then somehow, you know, we had another go. And I think what I found was is that by the last time, I actually was was really at peace with the fact that I might not ever get this because it had been so valuable to me personally. And I never would have seen that at the beginning. So I guess the hard part of it was what then became the easy part, which was that this was a professional development kind of reflection. And so, you know, for me, so doing it some way into your career, I kind of made sense because you suddenly kind of put the pieces together that you might not have even seen yourself. And the last thing I'll say is, is I think on the this may sound a bit crass because half of the dossier is about teaching excellence. But there's nobody applying or being encouraged to apply who isn't excellent on the teaching side. So that's kind of the table stakes. And it's the education piece, which is I think hard to put a compelling story together. And what became clear to me in the feedback over several literations is that it wasn't enough just to show educational leadership that you're in your own faculty or even your own institution. And I think this place to the point Tiffany made earlier about communities, you have to show how you're having impact beyond your university. And that's challenging. You can't make that up. You have to kind of see kind of maybe where you've been connected that you may not have always appreciated. Thank you. That may lead into our our next one, which is do you have a sense of which aspects of nominations might make them more or less successful? I'm going to ask Darren to answer this one. So a lot has been said, and I actually had about eight, eight or nine points that I wanted to make and a number of them have been made. So I just quickly reinforced those. But I think having seen probably six of these now go through six iterations. There is an element of review or draw here. And, you know, that's something that that we just don't control in academia. And so, you know, who who reads it, how they read it is, is the X factor that you can't control. But there's a number of things that you can do to help the nomination be successful. Number one in my book is story and that's been mentioned repetitively. So I won't reinforce that other than to say that that is the number one thing I think that leads to success is are you telling story? Number two to me, and it's been said was personalized, make human. That tends to be something that really wins with respect to these in my opinion. The third that I think fundamentally most important and Paul just stated it is the educational leadership. And as a third point, the table stakes are excellence. Everyone that does this is an excellent teacher. They get great ratings. People look at them as inspirational. Yada yada. But it's really how have you made an impact? I guess that's what I would would say maybe a bit of an add on to what's been said before is is think about crystallizing. What does impact you with respect to your teaching portfolio? Where have you had impact? And it really does have to be broader than just your course and your little sandbox. What gets rewarded here is impact at a university level at a national level at an international level. So that's something that you should be thinking about if you're if you're hoping to apply is, you know, where does that impact land? A notion was raised on on being balanced. And I think Tiffany that said that in terms of how much you talk yourself up versus you don't. But it's a pure balance. And I've seen feedback that says, you know, you've talked too much. It's too bragging. And then on the flip side, you don't talk enough about yourself. And so you're too Canadian. And so you've got to get that sweet spot in the middle, where you are, you know, getting the right tone as as you flow through the process. The last one to reinforce that someone also said is this notion of letters. The support letters are critical and they should align to the story that you're telling. But I would take it even a step further. I think you want to be a bit strategic with you and your sponsor in terms of letters. The letters should be sourced according to the type of point you need them to make. And so it's just not a cattle call for letters. You should be thinking about colleagues, students, people that you've had an impact on in other ways. And then don't write the letters for them. That's not what I'm saying. But you should be seeding the letters strategically so that you can have them fit into the story that you're actually trying to trying to deliver. I would say you over sample on letters. When I work with Paul, you know, we would ask for 10 letters and we use four. And so, you know, you're able to actually fit that into the narrative that you're trying to align to. The other ones that are a little new that I would add organization and clarity are huge. It's 50 pages. And if it's just a laundry list of blah, blah, blah, you will never win. And so you have to think about the narrative in terms of clarity and organization. And that's that's fundamental. A second one that I wanted to say is the notion of alignment. Everything should align to the narrative that you're talking about. If you have a piece that doesn't align to the narrative, then it should be dropped and eliminated. So organization, clarity and alignment, I think are something that haven't been said that I would point to. And then the last one I promise I'm done is you need to have a bit of a hook. And what I mean by that is what's interesting or unique about your story. And that's what they're really I find looking for when I look at the winners each year. And Paul and I have have analyzed over the last number of years. Each winner has something that's a bit unique and a bit interesting about their storyline, whether it's the background that they come from, some big innovation they've done, or the impact in a very specific way. And so try to think about what's the hook with respect to the story that you're actually telling. And so that's hopefully not too comprehensive, but a lot of ideas that I at least have noticed over the years with respect to these nominations. Thank you, Maya, do you have anything to add? That was very comprehensive there. Sorry. But also true, because yeah, I forgot about some things, but yes, the hook is definitely important and it helps the that hook about what is interesting about you, maybe even comes in the provost letter because provost letter is at the top of your package and then there are other sections. But you and your helpers who help you put this together are the ones who are who have to identify the hook. You cannot wait for the provost or whoever is helping the provost to identify it for you. And it really needs the package. The only thing I will add is the package read really needs to be one unit needs needs to speak about you. And it has to be way more personal than what we are usually used to about writing about ourselves. Nobody I think likes to write about him or herself. But this package is very personal and it goes to people who will not necessarily come most likely will not come from your discipline. So you have to write it in a way that somebody who is not in your discipline will understand your leadership and your impact and what exactly you've done that's worthy of nomination. So and for me not coming from literature. This was a challenge because this was after probably first first thing that I wrote after high school that had some literature at aspect in in what I was writing. Keep that in mind even more so than for other other applications that it has to be bit more literally. Then what what we usually most of us are writing. Right. Thank you. So we've got a couple more. What do you suggest nominees and the nominator not do. So I've got successful or unsuccessful. What mistakes might they avoid. So I've got Pete's up for this one. Yeah, I I think it's to answer this one really it's been answered. Everybody going before has said the elements of this successful application and you know, the notes I had were things like large lists of your accomplishments being overly boastful or not being self promoting enough lack story and so on. And so I don't want to just go through and list all of those things again. What I might say is with my cohorts there were we were off at the resort. I think when it's still back there and before we went we agreed to share all our dossiers. So we shared our packages of one another. We read each of ours before we met in person basically and the common themes were exactly what's being said. Everybody's was personal. There was a story about them. It had a hook each one of the 10 there was a hook that grabbed you and you know, thinking of story there was a beginning, middle and end, you know, there was there was it was set up in the beginning. There was some interest and you wanted to keep reading and find out more about how the story was going to end and there was a conclusion at the end of the package. So I would say, you know, that element of narrative and story and hook are extremely important. I did want to pick up on what was said about repurposing other materials and I think it's great to look back to things that you've already done other applications, you know, promotion tenure, those things draw inspiration from them. But I would say here you want to start absolutely fresh. So pull ideas from those. But before you start doing that, have a build in your mind what your narrative is the other one maybe that that hasn't been said here is the importance of sticking to the criteria that they give you. There are I think the year when I was when I applied I heard it was about a hundred applications that are going through and I had talked to a couple of people and they what they censored was the committee they're looking for ways to get that that number down. So everybody is so strong. All the applications are so strong. This isn't a matter of pulling out the 10 strongest. The way they described it was there they're just looking for any reason to pull some out to make their list. They're the group that they have to search through smaller. And I was asking Gary Poole actually a question about about this. I had 51 pages and I said, you know, is that they're going to remove that right away. Doesn't matter what's inside that just makes their job that much easier. And so definitely stick to the criteria that are there follow those. I think to pick up on one thing, I believe Darren said it and a couple others. The balance of EL and teaching everybody is the teaching will shine through on its own. So the educational leadership piece, that's the the thing that your narrative, your story really has to tie into make sure they're both in there. But it's the EL that deserves the effort, I think. But other than that, yeah, everything that's been that others have said, I think I agree with entirely. Thanks. We're going to move to the last question. And then if there's no questions from the audience, well, I'll let the panelists reply to anything they wish. So if there's one thing you would have done differently looking back, what would it be, Steven? So I was actually while everyone was talking there, I was looking at my actual package. And we keep on talking about 50 pages. I just looked and I actually ended up my component of the package was seven pages. So that's how much space I actually had to give my story. And that includes both the educational leadership and the writing. Why is it so short? It's because all those letters, all those comments from students, from courses you've taught, everything else and the components written by your nominator take up those 50 pages. And so the sooner you actually have a page count, some sort of sense of how much space you have to work with, the better. So I left that too late and I was constantly fiddling with length, which is was driving me nuts, quite frankly. So one day I would be told, OK, you have eight pages. Oh, actually, you have nine pages because the letterwriter wanted to change this about their letter. So the sooner you can get all those other pieces in, the less of an ongoing piece of work it's going to be for you. And I'm just going to reiterate too. The telling of the story is critical. What I what I started off when I when I was doing my package and didn't do correctly, according to my nominator, was emphasizing too much while making it more and less like than than story like. And I think the story is really critical. I think it's really important to realize too that educational leadership is one way of showing your reach beyond the university. But having students who and you're supposed to get letters from former students having students who have who can speak to the impact of your teaching on their lives is critical. Like what what are they doing now five years after they took your course and how did their how did your course? If anything affect their lives and that's impact beyond the classroom in addition to yell. And I think when I spoke to the other members of the 3M cohort that I won with that that year, all of us seem to have this connection with our students and this sort of empathic connection with our students that seem to be a common thread. And yeah, I think you just want to make sure you're looking for students who are letter writers who can speak to to that aspect of your teaching the impact of your teaching beyond the classroom. Sorry, that was a mixture of what I shouldn't have done differently and what I what I think people should do. That's totally fine. No, it's really useful. Thank you. I've gotten a question on the chat, which is how do you find a nominator of anybody on the panel? I can say that my department actually has a service job that is essentially awards. We have one faculty member who's titled Service Role as awards coordinator and it's not student awards. Someone else does that. It is nominating faculty members for research awards and and and teaching awards and service awards. And so we actually have a faculty member who's designated to do that. And much to my dismay, Ava Marie Curler has retired this year. But, you know, it is we actually had someone who's for whom it was their actual role. So if your department has that, that it seems to me as the first person to reach out to they may not be someone who's aware of the 3M, but they can certainly help you. I think it's important that the nominator truly know you as an educator. I mean, it's not just an administration role that somebody is doing, contacting these people and, you know, who making the various letters of reference. It's there. They're that fresh set of eyes that can look at your package to say, you know, you really aren't doing a very good job of really explaining what you do here or you haven't played up this part of your, you know, your educational life. When I was lucky, my nominator was somebody I TA'd in the 1980s. Then he served as my TA and then he was my department head. So I know I had something I knew for a long time, but it has to be somebody who genuinely knows you who can and so to say it's not just doing the paperwork on it, but that they can really be a good set of eyes to help you. This bleeds into the last question, too. But I would add to what Simon said, because Simon is 100% correct. You need someone that knows always. Oh, careful. But I would also go with what Tiffany said. I would say it takes a bit of a village. And though I was the primary nominee or nominator for Paul, we actually involved a number of people, everyone from Simon Bates to TLT to the central head office, provost to our faculty had administrative people that helped. So it's not a one person support system, I would say, but you do need someone that is organized. It helps to get to the finish line and be the one that really knows you and can give you honest feedback. So that's what I would say you should be looking for. I think if you're reaching out to someone for nomination or it's a ton of work, or at least, you know, in my case, I've ever read just it was a ton of time. And so both you need someone who is kind and good, but also someone who's going to be able to give it that amount of time. It's as those of you who've been nominators know, it is not a small job. And it's important to sort of realize this isn't a matter of pulling a few things together and sending it off. And again, I would I would feel a lot. I felt a lot of anxiety about asking people to do that for me. But I think it is important that when you are thinking about a nominator that they are able to take on this fairly substantial task. So there's a question in the chat as well about whether the nominator should be someone who was also a member of STLEG and I've got a number of answers saying no, that's not necessary. So that's a good question. Other questions from the from the room. Or I can ask the panelists to respond to anything that they wish or add anything they wish. I wanted to say that a good nominator in the context as we can increasingly at UBC get more and more 3M national teaching fellows. And if you have one in your department, they might be a great nominator to approach given that they've been through that. I mean, there's all there's obviously other choices to like Simon clearly had a good nominator in his mind. But I think seeking out help from an existing 3M and TF, I think is a good idea, even if they're not in your department, just meet with them and sit down and talk about what they did. And who knows, maybe they will be willing to be a nominator for you. Or at least help organize your package. I've got a different point to suggest and that might be helpful. Is this I think it's hard to know what good good looks like for this sort of document because it's an atypical document. And so there's a temptation I think early on to say, hey, I wonder if I can read lots of other people's documents. And what I did is, is, is from memory. And again, it's going back over a number of years is I delayed doing that initially, because I think you from my point of view, you don't want to be overly influenced and think you're copying somebody else's document because it has to be yours. So I tried to do a draft based on the guidance of the format and it was frustrating because of all of the constraints and so on. And then but I remember that I think it was probably after I'd been kind of turned down the first year, I contacted Peter and Peter was kind enough to lend me or let me have cited his document. He just won the previous year. And it was like a revelation. And I think if I'd seen that too soon, it wouldn't have been as helpful because it might have kind of narrowed me in and but and the one that one big thing I took out of it, apart from just kind of reading it and seeing that it was so much clearer and more kind of compelling than what I had submitted was that he'd done a little trick. He said he talked about 51 pages and then going back to 50. But one of the things that I double checked and triple checked with the kind of the criteria is if you use title pages between sections, which you can also put images on, they don't count in the page count. Right. And so that was a critical kind of change to how I made mine more digestible and readable and gave some character to it. So it might sound like a small thing, but that was anyway. So Peter, five years later, thank you. I also took advantage of those spacing pages. Maybe I can flip my laptop around. Hold on a second. This is my cover page, which basically has a big drawing that I did. So I put all my art on these intermediate pages, but one could actually put anything there. Quotes from students. You could do photo of you in your classroom. These are not things that actually count towards the page count, but they're actually spaces that can make your package more personal. So I think some things have changed and I don't remember a space spacing pages when I did it in 2012 when I submitted it. But I think going back to something Paul said, I think that the instructions on the 3M website have become really quite prescriptive now. They're quite guiding in what you what you should include. And so I think that aspect of personalizing it so it's not just formulaic really does come out. Going back to sort of getting advice from other people, I think it is essential, almost essential that you do. You do talk to one or two people who have won this just to understand what they went through. Harry Hubble was my guiding light. And on the sort of side of things about not not being coy and not being shy. I've shared this analogy before some other people might have heard it. I'm not keen on sort of shouting out my strengths and I sort of think as teachers generally we are givers rather than people sort of seek seeking out a limelight. And Harry gave me this analogy that he said, you know, so you're not good at playing, you know, shouting your own, you know, tooting your own horn, sort of playing your trumpet. So this analogy was get a trumpet, a metaphorical trumpet, go into a room, play it as loud as you can. But when you leave, don't think you're a trumpet player. So, you know, so within the confines of this exercise, you know, don't be shy of saying what you what you have done. But don't let it go to your head, basically. OK, we're running a little low on time. There was a question in the chat about when do the criteria get published? Because right now it says that the STLHE and 3M have signed a new agreement working on renewing the nomination process and deadline for 2021. As a I think last year at this time there were there was more information. It might have been from previous years. But someone replied in the chat that it's normally announced in May or June. So it should be coming up soon. Are there any last questions or comments before we move to one more aspect of the session? Maybe maybe just one comment for me. So I was nominated by my department head. So not an STLHE member. That came mid summer and it was more or less on me put my other. He and my dean wrote a three and a half page letter. And the rest of it was was me. Who who it was for me to seek out who would be submitting letters, you know, all those details. So it can't be done. But it was a very busy summer. It occupied all my time right up to the day of the submission. So so it doesn't have to be all led by a nominator. It can be the nominee doing a lot of that work as well. Right. Thank you. So what next? As I've already mentioned, the provost office would need your dossier about a month in advance of the deadline whenever that is announced to be. It's usually in September to prepare the support letter. So Simon, would those go to you directly? Yeah, they normally go to me and just a word on that. A month may seem like a long time to write a letter. But a few things. Faculty are like students sometimes and they tend to hand leave things to the last minute or hand things in a little bit late or even plead for an extension. So it's a semi flexible deadline. The other point is when crafting those letters, I need to spend quite a bit of time with the dossier. So advance site of a draft or kind of 90 percent there. But I know I still need to make changes is helpful because it allows me to stop organizing thoughts earlier. And the other reason why we ask for a month is that there have been years when we've had four or five nominations go in and, you know, it takes time to do the work that you as applicants do justice. And so I need to need to be able to prepare for that. It's great. Thank you. And from our end at the Center for Teaching, Learning and Technology, we can offer those who are looking to apply one on one consultations. We also have some sample dossiers from many of the people who are on this call. And if those others not sure they're with us and would be willing to do so, they could connect with Judy. Would you like to say anything about this, Judy? So I have a few samples with me and I haven't asked point Tiffany yet, but if you're willing to share, I'm happy to host them or I can direct people to to you, to each of the the fellows here. Happy to look at your happy to look at your dossier and give you some preliminary thoughts. Is it compelling? Is there a hook? So happy to work with you. Thank you. And that, I think, is it for our presentation.