Inbox for Everyone: Accessible Emails, Newsletters and Google Groups

Wednesday, Feb. 18, noon to 1 p.m., Zoom

Your email announcements should reach everyone. In this webinar, you’ll learn how to design accessible email newsletters and announcements that work for screen readers, keyboard users and mobile devices.

Don’t have a good way to send group messages? We’ll also walk through setting up a Google Group as a modern, accessible way to manage group messaging — whether you’re starting a new mailing list or replacing an outdated listserv.

If you have a newsletter that you’d like to use as an example for the webinar, please email digital-access@cmu.edu.

Register for Webinar

Putting Community Partners on the Budget

Thursday, Feb. 19, 9 a.m., Sorrells Library Den, Wean Hall

We put our academic colleagues on the budget when we write proposals, but so often community partners end up as a footnote or being left off entirely. They might be the subject of your research, but what if they are helping you recruit participants, develop the research questions, or providing the intervention and collecting data? We will discuss the many ways payments to individuals can be made at CMU, and how we can honor the time and subject matter expertise of community partners.

CMU Middle States Reaccreditation Community Town Hall

Tuesday, Feb. 24, 5 to 6 p.m., Simmons B, Tepper Building

CMU students, faculty, staff, and alumni are invited to attend a Town Hall to learn more about the University’s 2025–2027 Middle States Reaccreditation cycle. Participants will hear updates on the Self-Study process, how this work intersects with CMU’s Strategic Framework, and have opportunities to provide ideas, share comments, and ask questions. Community input and engagement are a critical part of the Self-Study.

Visit Institutional Reaccreditation to learn more.

A Zoom option is available for those who cannot attend in person.

Mental Health Training to Support Students

Join the over 100+ CMU faculty who have already completed a mandatory mental health training to support students. Faculty can choose from three different trainings.

Refer to Provost Garrett and Dean Caselegno's message to faculty for more information and the Counseling & Psychological Services website for a list of upcoming training sessions.

Help Shape Professional Development for Faculty

Help us shape professional development opportunities for CMU faculty! This year, the Office of the Vice Provost for Faculty is collecting feedback from faculty about their professional development experience at the university. We are interested in learning more about how faculty engage in professional development throughout their career and what kinds of opportunities that you would like to see in the future. Your feedback will help us to better support our faculty at CMU.

Interested faculty are invited to engage through the following ways:

• Complete a survey by March 15; the survey is anonymous and should take approximately 10-15 minutes to complete
• Sign up for a focus group; a variety of in-person and remote 90 minute focus groups will be available

The survey and focus group are open to CMU faculty from any location, school/college, rank and track. Faculty can participate in either or both the survey and focus group, depending on their preference and availability. For questions, please contact the Office of the Vice Provost for Faculty at vpfaculty@andrew.cmu.edu.

Leading with Humility

Tuesday, March 17, noon to 1 p.m., Dean's Office Conference Room (Baker 154R)

This engaging one-hour session invites community members to rethink leadership by exploring how humility can be a strategic advantage in today’s evolving academic environment.

Drawing on real-world examples and interactive elements, participants will discover why the most effective leaders acknowledge what they don’t know, learn collaboratively and empower others to succeed. Join us for insights and strategies to enhance collaboration, build trust and strengthen your impact within the campus community.

RSVP by March 3

Center for the Arts in Society (CAS) call for Proposals: The Repair Initiative 

Proposal deadline: 11:59 p.m. Sunday, March 29, 2026

The CMU Center for the Arts in Society (CAS) has selected Repair as its next three-year initiative (2026-29). Repair is often imagined as an act of fixing broken objects, but its reach is much broader. Material things, infrastructures, relationships, ecosystems, bodies of knowledge, communities and institutions all require care, ongoing maintenance, and, at times, intervention. In an era marked by extraction, disposability and structural harm, repair offers a counter-practice: one that recognizes what already exists, what has been damaged, what must be mended, and who must be held to account. Repair can mean making amends, restoring trust, revitalizing environments or sustaining cultural memory. It can also take the form of transgressive action when formal systems fail to respond.

The Repair Initiative explores the many ways individuals and collectives confront breakage and neglect: through restorative justice and historical reparations; right-to-repair movements; community archiving and the preservation of languages and culture; acts of care, stewardship and maintenance; participatory or DIY interventions in public space; and the creation of tools and techniques to preserve, authenticate or access knowledge. Repair is not nostalgia for an earlier condition; it is a practice of accountability, critical imagination and regeneration in the present for the future.

We will support faculty-led projects that analyze, enact or reimagine repair across the arts and humanities. Projects may examine infrastructures of accountability and evidence; practices of mending, maintenance, circulation and access; or community-based interventions in public, digital or ecological systems. They may probe the ethics of witnessing and documentation, the value of vernacular and insurgent repair cultures, or the speculative and creative potentials of repair.

Three-year projects will be funded as follows: the faculty project leader will receive a one-month $5,000 summer salary supplement for each of the three years, plus $20,000 in additional funds to develop and produce the project over its three-year time span. Additional funding that supports publication and project-related course development may also be available. CAS projects are typically funded for three years, but project proposals with shorter timelines will also be considered, and funded proportionally.

Professors Jay Aronson (Department of History, Dietrich College) and Golan Levin (School of Art, CFA) will co-coordinate the Repair Initiative, which will begin in fall of 2026.

The Call for Proposals (along with guidance for applications) can be found here.

Questions can be directed to the coordinators or to Wendy Arons, CAS director.

Job Offer Negotiation: Tips for Measuring and Communicating Your Market Value

Tuesday, Feb. 24, 5 to 6 p.m., Dean's Office Conference Room (Baker 154R)

How do you know if you are receiving a fair and competitive job offer? This professional development workshop will focus on strategies for researching your market value using company data, online salary tools and Carnegie Mellon University outcomes data. We will also discuss how you can professionally communicate salary expectations and counter job offers in order to secure an opportunity that aligns with your personal and professional needs.

Hosted by CPDC Representatives: Katie Flanigan and Necia Werner

Register by Feb. 17

Deep Tech Venture-Ready Program

If you’re a Ph.D. student, postdoc, faculty member, technical founder or alum considering commercialization, the CMU Deep Tech Venture-Ready Program is designed for you!

The CMU Deep Tech Venture-Ready Program is a 6-month, cohort-based experience that demystifies how deep-tech companies are formed, evaluated and funded. In monthly sessions built for you, leading deep tech VCs will:

• Break down VC fund economics and incentives
• Walk through sourcing, diligence and deal structuring
• Coach you on fundraising strategy, pitch materials and building a data room
• Run a live Investment Committee simulation so you can see how decisions are actually made

The program culminates in an in-person Investment Committee experience in New York City during Tech Week, where VCs conduct diligence on participating companies and present their findings live.