Getting to know your fellow faculty members is both enjoyable and a great way to grow professionally. That’s the concept behind Faculty Pub, a casual monthly gathering for tenured, tenure-track, non-tenure-track, and retired faculty.
We’re pleased to open our spring semester Faculty Pub series on Thursday, February 25, during Faculty Appreciation Week. Please join us from 4:00 to 7:00 p.m. in the West Club of Neyland Stadium for free appetizers and a cash bar. For easiest access, enter the stadium at Gate 19. Limited parking will be available for vehicles with a UT parking tag in Lot 9 on Phillip Fulmer Way beginning at 5:00 p.m.
Mark your calendar for the other Faculty Pubs, on March 24 and April 28. They are also scheduled from 4:00 to 7:00 p.m. in the West Club of Neyland Stadium.
Faculty Pub has been around for more than four years, so we distributed a survey last semester to all faculty to re-evaluate our efforts. We wanted to make sure Faculty Pub was something you valued and wanted us to continue.
Your response was overwhelming, with more than 425 of you taking time to give us feedback.
Based on the feedback we received, we have made the following changes to maximize faculty members’ opportunity to participate:
- We’ll focus on food and networking. Eighty percent of those who have attended a previous pub and 89 percent of those who plan to attend for the first time noted that the opportunity to meet with faculty from across campus was the pub’s most appealing feature. Incorporating entertainment or other forms of programming was of least importance to all groups who responded.
- Another factor of critical importance was that the pub be held in a convenient location. As a result, this event will now be hosted in the West Club of Neyland Stadium, a beautiful space that is centrally located on the main campus with available parking nearby.
- The pub will be held from 4:00 to 7:00 p.m. on the fourth Thursday of the month this semester. While not ideal for everyone, this schedule resulted from 73 percent of responses requesting one meeting per month, 60 percent noting that Thursday was the best day of the week for this event, and 95 percent requesting a time that included the hours of 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. We elected to keep our starting time at 4:00 p.m. to accommodate a significant number of faculty who said they wanted to participate but had family or work obligations after 5:00 p.m.
We look forward to seeing you at the Faculty Pub! To allow us to make appropriate preparations, RSVP by Monday, February 22.