Past Trainings

The GDFP series in 2022-23 is based on the NSF-funded UCSF-CCSF Inclusive Research Mentor/Manager training (DUE #1801186, 1800998, 2055735, 2055309), committed to building more inclusive lab environments. This series focuses on teaching scientists evidence-based frameworks, language and strategies to lead productive teams, including:

1. People manager skills: Learn the 7 core supervisory/people manager skills including approaches to manage the role conflict inherent in navigating the overlapping mentoring, teaching/training and supervisory responsibilities. 
    
2. Operationalizing inclusivity in day-to-day responsibilities: Identify and apply the 5 concrete strategies that are the basis of inclusivity when managing performance. Also develop strategies to navigate power differentials on productive teams. 
    
3. Utilizing change management principles: Determine and manage which inclusive practices will work for your specific situation/population. 

Module 1 - Faculty: inclusivity is a design question. Which inclusive practices will you use?

Many faculty/research mentors have people manager/supervisory responsibilities (including setting expectations and giving feedback to improve performance), and could therefore benefit from inclusive management practices which have been shown to increase productivity, morale and wellbeing.

If you are wondering which inclusive strategies and tools will work with your team, this is the session for you! We will examine frameworks, practice language, and determine which inclusive approaches would work with your approach/situation.

In this highly-interactive, kickoff session, participants will:

1. Learn a framework benchmarking inclusivity for mentors/managers to assess which decisions, behaviors and actions meet our definition of an "inclusive mentor and manager."
2. Practice applying these principles to their own work responsibilities, by intentionally designing inclusivity into a common mentoring/managing task (holding a 1:1/group/lab meeting). We will use this example to extrapolate how research mentors can intentionally infuse inclusive best practices into any mentoring/managing task. 
3. Test out engaging in an "inclusivity check," by identifying a professional situation or process of their choice (giving feedback, part of an interviewing/recruiting process, etc.)  and considering strategies to both identify and increase the level of inclusivity for participants.
4. Discuss change management basics, including best practices when introducing a new process/procedure on your team. 
   
    

Module 2 - Faculty with People Manager Responsibilities: Strategies to manage productivity

Many faculty/research mentors have "people manager/supervisory" responsibilities, from setting expectations to giving feedback to improve performance. Learn and discuss how which best practices you can apply to work with your diverse team of mentees/staff:

In this session, participants:

• Self-evaluate their strengths and growth areas in executing the 7 fundamental people manager responsibilities, including setting expectations; the three types of feedback; rewarding achievement; and managing the inevitable conflict and change inherent in even the most functional teams.

• Dissect the specific strategies, resources and support faculty can use to equitable balance decisions and actions in fulfilling their differing roles as a research mentor, educator/trainer and people manager.

By the end of this session, participants will have a definition of what it means to 'manage effectively' as a faculty member! 

Module 3 - Effectively Supervising People Who Aren't You: Mentoring and managing different work style preferences

In this workshop, we'll discuss how understanding your lab members' different professional values and approaches to work can impact your group's productivity, morale and well-being.  We'll also cover approaches that PIs can use to engage workstyle and value differences skillfully, including when and how to make space for differences and/or set boundaries. 

• First, we consider which facets shape an individual's "operating system" when we engage in work, including factors such as how we prefer to communicate/engage others, make decisions, feel organized, and define "behaving professionally.
• Second, participants will assess and articulate their own work style preferences, as well as develop vocabulary to consider and discuss others’ preferences without unnecessarily pathologizing others approach to work.
• Finally, we'll discuss inclusive tactics that team leaders use to manage values and work style differences and create a positive team dynamic that reaps the benefits of working in diverse teams.
   

Module 4 - How to transparently set (performance and conduct) expectations and train your diverse team

Have you ever been surprised or frustrated that someone in your lab isn’t meeting performance or conduct expectations? Are you wondering about the organizational management benchmarks, strategies and best practices to transparently set expectations? Then this is the session for you!

• In this workshop, we’ll discuss challenges and tactics to share the wide range of expectations that need to be set - from promptness to productivity and problem solving. Participants will also learn organizational management best practices to articulate, refine, reinforce and/or update those expectations. Next, we'll cover how skillful leaders avoid common pitfalls (e.g. articulating only the "what" but not the "how" of expectations, failing to include tacit expectations, setting boundaries around key expectations such as problems, etc.) Finally, we’ll point out links and materials to institutional resources for further support.
   
• Participants will have small group discussions to share strategies, consider what new strategies they might adopt (and which ones wouldn’t work for them), and brainstorm next steps.
   

Module 5 - Communicating inclusively: Developing your own feedback strategy and style

Do you feel most comfortable offering positive (or kudos) feedback? Do you tend to avoid or sugarcoat corrective feedback because you are concerned that your words will demotivate the listener? Not sure what "evaluative" feedback is? Then this is the session for you.

In this module, we begin by dissecting the three types of feedback that everyone (including you) needs to be productive: kudos, corrective and evaluative feedback. Participants will:

1. Practice giving feedback using an evidence-based protocol that works for both kudos and corrective feedback.
2. Discuss how to modify the protocol as they consider their style (including their personal values, approach and language) and the receiver.
3. Describe strategies to both gain buy-in/determine how the receiver can best hear and act on that feedback, and how to engage when the recipient has a strong reaction to feedback.

Module 6 - When someone isn't meeting your expectations: Strategies and resources to manage performance equitably

When someone repeatedly fails to meet performance or conduct expectations, many research mentors/managers are unsure how to respond. Moreover, many commonly mistakenly attempt to handle the situation alone (and are unaware of how to skillfully access institutional support). This session uses a case study and presents participants with an approach to identify and strategize potential skillful responses to performance issues.

In this module, participants will learn:

1. A strategy to assess and articulate ongoing or unresolved performance or conduct issues
2. Tactics to determine how your institution expects you to manage performance or conduct issues
3. Approaches to access organizational resources to help navigate challenging performance situations and avoid common mistakes

Career Conversations

Date: July 20 and 22, 2021

Liz Silva, PhD

UCSF graduate students move into an array of positions after graduation. Most will spend a good deal of time during graduate school trying to figure out their next steps, and they may want to talk to you about it. In this workshop, you will learn about the features of effective career decision making, some of the driving factors in student and postdoc decision-making in the academic STEM environment, and you will be provided with tools and resources to support you and your students in balancing their career exploration with their graduate school commitments.

Sharpening Your Research Mentoring Skills

Date: Oct. 26 and 28, 2021

Isaac Strong, PhD

There has been a lot of focus on mentorship in basic and biomedical sciences training programs and, in turn, graduate programs within the Graduate Division are requiring their faculty participate in trainings to improve their mentoring skills. The goal of the Graduate Faculty Development Program is to provide a suite of evidence-based trainings and support for UCSF faculty in their work to improve their skills as research mentors. In this introductory workshop, we will explore ways in which mentoring in the context of science research training programs can be better seen as a balancing act, where research faculty have to skillfully manage mentoring, supervisory, and educational tasks simultaneously. We will dive into these different roles and the additional trainings that faculty can participate in if they want to learn more. This workshop will involve presentation of information, but will primarily consist of opportunities for dialogue between faculty in small and large groups. This workshop is being offered at two different times in hopes to better accommodate and include faculty that have dependent care responsibilities.

Defining 'Distance Traveled': A Working Session

Date: Nov. 4, 2021

Liz Silva, PhD

“Distance Traveled” is a concept that is becoming increasingly prevalent as a metric for considering applicant potential. Yet only a subset of programs have defined what they mean by this. We invite members of the admissions committees from each program to this interactive workshop in which we will collectively and collaboratively develop working definitions and metrics for considering Distance Traveled, to be used for the 2022 admissions cycle.

This working session is for graduate program faculty and staff that are on admissions committees. If you are interested in joining but are not on an admissions committee, please consult with your graduate program's admissions committee chair.

Equity Based Interview Practices

Date: Jan. 12, 2022

Deonna Smith and Darius White

We are incredibly happy to be co-sponsoring this training with the BMS and DSCB graduate programs. This training will focus on recognizing and mitigating bias during the interview process as well as how to equitably assess interviewee responses. Anyone that will be involved in their graduate program's admissions interviews is highly encouraged to participate. The training will consist of presentation of information and discussion, followed by working time for admissions committees to get feedback from our facilitators.

Avoiding Social Bias Detours

Date: March 1, 2022

Carlos Hoyt, PhD, LICSW

“I cling to the hope that most of us want racial equity. The question for those of us who find detours alluring is whether we have the will to align our actions with our philosophies.”  

- Paul Gorski, 2019
 
In Avoiding Racial Equity Detours, Gorski points to ways in which the most well-intentioned individuals and institutions veer away from the kinds of efforts required to truly combat racism. Instead, they end up in cul-de-sacs where the problematic status quo is preserved and real change and improvement is deferred.

This workshop will reflect Gorski’s urgency and candor while expanding the field of inquiry to all forms of social bias (racism, ablism, genderism, elitism, ageism, ethnocentrism/xenophobia, heterosexism/homophobia, and worldview intolerance) to create a highly interactive and collaborative space in which participants can examine ways in which their UCSF sub-communities, and UCSF in total, can acknowledge and correct inclusivity efforts that amount to detours instead of real improvement.

From Race to Racialization: Why & How Scientists Must Save the World by Ceasing the Scientification of Race

Date: March 2, 2022

Carlos Hoyt, PhD, LICSW

TRUE or FALSE:
Race should be used in research studies involving health-care delivery, etiologies of medical conditions, and health outcomes, but only as a sociopolitical category.

How do you understand, employ and possibly deploy the concept of race in your work as a scientist? What is your opportunity and obligation as a scientist to cease (altogether, once and for all) your use of race as a concept, construct, variable, or factor in your work? Does this question trigger cognitive dissonance and possibly objection for you? Do you agree that science should consign “race” to the dustbin of history but aren’t sure what you would replace it with?

Setting Expectations with a “Welcome to the Lab” Letter

Date: April 7 and 12, 2022

Mental Health in a Pandemic: Q&A for Faculty

Date: April 30, 2022

Jeanne Stanford, PhD; Alexandra Thurston, PsyD; and Andrew Parker, PhD
 
The Graduate Division conducted a pulse check survey of graduate students and faculty to understand the complex challenges that members of our community are facing (data coming soon). Understandably, our trainees are generally struggling with many complex mental health issues that are complicated by the uncertainty and disruption caused by the pandemic. Faculty face their own challenges during this crisis and our data reveal that the difficult task of attending to student mental health has become even more difficult.

Mental health support staff from Student Health and Counseling Services and from the Faculty and Staff Assistance Program will lead this session, aimed at providing you with guidance and an opportunity to voice your concerns.

Dis/abilities Awareness

Date: May 5, 2022

Tim Montgomery and Clay Littrell, Student Disabilities Services

Fostering inclusive and affirming spaces requires that research mentors are able to respond to and support the various identities of their trainees, yet there tends to be a lot of uncertainty in how to support students with dis/abilities. This workshop, developed by UCSF alumna Taylor Arhar in collaboration with Student Disability Services, will equip research mentors with the basics of what they need to know about the accommodations process and help them understand how to support students who might request accommodations. Additionally, this workshop will provide participants an opportunity to re-frame how they think about dis/abilities in a way that can have a profound impact on trainees' sense of belonging in a graduate program and research lab. This workshop will include presentation of information, small group discussions of case studies, and large group discussions.

*The term dis/ability, (spelled with the slash) is used intentionally to counter the word disability (spelled without the slash). The use of the term disability (spelled without the slash) suggests that a person is represented, or identified, by what they cannot do, rather than what they can do.*

Effective Strategies for IDPs

Date: May 31, 2022

Bill Lindstaedt

To help you determine how to effectively guide your trainees through an Independent Development Plan (IDP), this workshop will focus on key components of effective IDPs and IDP conversations. Bill Lindstaedt, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Career Advancement, International and Postdoctoral Services, will share his expertise in order to frame the underlying aspects that make the effort of an IDP worth the effort, as well as different strategies that you can employ to get the most out of an IDP conversation. Bill will also cover how you can adapt these strategies to help your trainees establish a COVID plan by working together to establish short-term and long-term goals that can provide much-needed structure during the current crisis. This iteration of a previously-delivered workshop will is aimed at helping faculty think through equitable, team-based approaches for the partial resumption of lab research at UCSF. This workshop will include a presentation, small-group discussions of case studies using Zoom's breakout rooms, and large-group discussion/Q&A.

Tools and Tips for Virtual Learning
Date: June 10, 2022
Janet Coffman, MA, MPP, PhD; Dorie Apollonio, PhD; Lisa Leiva, MS; and Isaac Strong
 
It can be difficult to know how to effectively adapt in-person courses to online formats. This webinar will present a conceptual framework and guiding principles that can help you strategically assess how to transition your current courses online. During this webinar, you will also learn about practical tools and resources available to you and learn from other faculty about what has worked for them.

Career Conversations

Date: June 21 and 23, 2022

Preparing to Teach and Advise Biomedical Grad Students and Postdocs Around Career and Professional Development: A Train-the-Trainers Event

Date: July 20 - 24, 2020

Dr. Lori Conlan and Dr. Phil Ryan

The NIH OITE has moved their Train-the-trainers event to a virtual format. This training is for advisors, staff and faculty who provide career and professional development programming and guidance to graduate students and postdoctoral researchers in the biomedical sciences. We have substantially updated the agenda. We have adjusted the start time to accommodate West Coast attendees. Additionally, we have added a third day (Thursday - July 23) to provide content to help us all navigate issues arising from current events. All registrants will also be invited to participate in optional small group discussions (1-hour) to enhance their learning on July 22.

This event will have content that is appropriate for first time attendees and returning participants. The first day will focus entirely on promoting the health and wellness of the biomedical research community. The second day will continue on the themes from day one with an additional focus on career advising and taking care of ourselves. Then, on Thursday we have added lecture and discussion for helping all of us navigate current events. Questions, please contact Dr. Lori Conlan and Dr. Phil Ryan.

Gathering in Community: a Training for Faculty and Staff

Date: Oct. 20 and 22, 2020

Liz Silva, PhD and Isaac Strong, PhD

Our goal is to provide participants with some of the skills needed hold healing spaces for members of their communities. These healing spaces will bring people together to grieve or express anxieties, to feel community, and to feel safe and supported in the aftermath of the election. Participants must be willing to commit the time and energy to both participate in this training and to setting and holding virtual gatherings with your learners, staff and faculty. This training will include specific instructions for structuring your gathering, a list of additional resources that can be shared broadly to help the members of your community seek the support and information they need, and email templates for reaching out to the members of your smaller communities.

Optimizing the Efficiency of Your Lab

Date: Nov. 10, 2020

Kirstie Keller, PhD

Optimally successful labs harness the power of their collective group and create a product that is greater than the sum of its parts, while developing effective scientists in the process. A lab can be viewed in part as a small business, which requires the critical components of management, budgeting, and employee development, but has the unique additional pressures of publishing, funding, and systematic turnover. How then do we optimize performance in such an ever-changing environment? In this seminar, we will discuss the what, why, and how of effective laboratory leadership, providing tangible and tactical techniques to implement into your lab to simplify communication, develop your workforce, and take things off of your plate through delegation. After this seminar, you should be able to put processes in place that encourage the independence of your lab members and leverage the individual strengths of each member to expand the productivity of the entire group.

Topics:

• Minding the gap at the intersection of supervisor and advisor, and why this matters
• Project management tactics and tools
• Models of delegation
• Science (and art) of team building
• How to build appropriate metrics of success

Setting Expectations with a "Welcome to the Lab" Letter

Dates: Dec. 1 and 8, 2020

Bill Lindstaedt, MS and Isaac Strong, PhD

Clearly communicating  equitable and inclusive expectations is key to effective team management. In her "Sharpening Your Mentoring Skills" seminar, Sharon Milgram recommended that research faculty adopt a "Welcome to the Lab" letter - a document that can be shared to set expectations and understandings around behavior, productivity, culture and research vision.

Do you need to create such a document but don't know where to start? Do you currently use such a document but you want to make your expectations more inclusive and equitable? Are you confused about how to effectively implement such a document with your team? Then this workshop is for you!

Drawing upon the diverse experiences and perspectives of UCSF faculty, Part 1 of this workshop will facilitate a crowd-sourcing activity to create a "Welcome to the Lab" template. This template will serve as a starting point for any faculty to create an expectations document adapted to their own needs. Part 2 of this workshop will serve as an opportunity for faculty to assess whether their expectations are clear, inclusive, and equitable, as well as learn about recommended strategies for effectively implementing a "Welcome to the Lab" letter with your research team.

Three Truths & Three Tries: Facing & Overcoming Critical Social Justice Challenges at the Micro, Mezzo & Macro Levels

Date: Feb. 16 and 18, 2021

Facilitator: Carlos Hoyt, PhD, LICSW

This session will provide an opportunity for faculty, postdocs, and students to have an open, honest, empathic, constructive, and productive dialogue about equity and inclusion. This session will cover topics of intersectionality of identity, implicit bias, and cognitive dissonance. The major focus of the session will be on microaggressions - what they are, how they can have profound impacts on members of our community, and methods to respond to microaggressions in a respectful manner.

"It's okay to not have come to know, but it can't be okay to refuse to grow." Dr. Hoyt will facilitate a conversation with faculty and staff about topics covered in the Grad Div DEI Primer as a way to create the groundwork to empower everyone to engage in important conversations about racism and inequity in science. Whether you feel completely behind and want to learn where to start, or you want to engage with your colleagues on issues for which you are passionate, the goal of this session is to provide a shared language to encourage more of us to engage in these conversations. This session is meant to provide faculty with some preparation to participate in the accompanying session, "Equity and Inclusion in the Lab" on Wednesday, February 17 which is open to faculty, staff, postdocs, and students. (note: details tentative, subject to change)

Growing Healthy Mentorship in these Unforgettable Times

Date: March 31, 2021

Mica Estrada, PhD

Building on Kelman’s (1958, 2006) tripartite integration model of social influence (TIMSI), Dr. Estrada will talk about how this model has been used to understand how students orient to their discipline communities and how this relates to persistence in those career pathways years after completing their training. By longitudinally tracking and examining psychosocial variables, we are better able to see what types of STEM training programs and mentorship are more likely to result in students persisting in STEM career pathways. Further, she will talk about how institutional policies and climate that provide kindness cues that affirm social inclusion may impact the integration experience for minoritized trainees, faculty and administrators. This workshop will include small group breakout rooms and large group discussions.

Sharpening Your Research Mentoring Skills

Date: May 25 and 27, 2021

Isaac Strong, PhD

There has been a lot of focus on mentorship in basic and biomedical sciences training programs and, in turn, graduate programs within the Graduate Division are requiring their faculty participate in trainings to improve their mentoring skills. The goal of the Graduate Faculty Development Program is to provide a suite of evidence-based trainings and support for UCSF faculty in their work to improve their skills as research mentors. In this introductory workshop, we will explore ways in which mentoring in the context of science research training programs can be better seen as a balancing act, where research faculty have to skillfully manage mentoring, supervisory, and educational tasks simultaneously. We will dive into these different roles and the additional trainings that faculty can participate in if they want to learn more. This workshop will involve presentation of information, but will primarily consist of opportunities for dialogue between faculty in small and large groups. This workshop is being offered at two different times in hopes to better accommodate and include faculty that have dependent care responsibilities.

Equity and Inclusion in the Lab

Date: Nov. 21-22, 2019

Carlos Hoyt, PhD, LICSW

Each of these two-hour workshops will provide an opportunity for faculty, postdocs, and students to have an open, honest, empathic, constructive, and productive dialogue about equity and inclusion. These workshops will cover topics of intersectionality of identity, implicit bias, and cognitive dissonance. The major focus of these sessions will be on microaggressions - what they are, how they can have profound impacts on members of our community, and methods to respond to microaggressions in a respectful manner.

ACRA: Setting Training Expectations for Trainees on the Academic Career Track

Date: Dec. 12 and 19, 2019

Laurence Clement, PhD

Mentoring graduate students and postdoctoral scholars involves providing career-development guidance and support, which requires an understanding of the hiring practices of diverse types of institutions. To this end, the OCPD team interviewed life science faculty members around the U.S. and asked them to identify the qualifications that were required for obtaining a faculty position at their institution, and the level of achievement candidates needed to receive a faculty job offer. The results were synthesized into a rubric, the Academic Career Readiness Assessment (ACRA). ACRA is an instrument used by trainees, graduate career educators, and faculty at UCSF and nationally to help prepare trainees for diverse academic careers, including careers at R1 institutions, primarily undergraduate institutions (PUIs), liberal arts colleges (LACs) and community colleges. Last month, the ACRA project received the first prize for the 2019 AAMC Innovations in Research and Research Education award.

In this workshop, we will discuss ways in which this tool can be used to set training expectations with your trainees, provide feedback on progress, help trainees prioritize training activities, and prepare them for the faculty application process. We will also present the methodology used to develop ACRA. The workshop will end with a conversation around your own experience developing skills for a faculty position and your thoughts on how the ACRA can be expanded to support your mentoring needs.

Promoting Student Mental Health

Date: March 3 and 10, 2020

Jeanne Stanford, PhD and John Tighe, LCSW

Part 1: Promoting Student Mental Health and Assisting Students in Distress: A Presentation and Discussion (for Staff and Faculty)

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Part 2: When You're Concerned: A Workshop to Practice Difficult Conversations with Students about Their Mental Health and Wellbeing (for Faculty only)

Effective Strategies for IDPs

Date: April 23, 2020

Bill Lindstaedt

To help you determine how to effectively guide your trainees through an Independent Development Plan (IDP), this workshop will focus on key components of effective IDPs and IDP conversations. Bill Lindstaedt, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Career Advancement, International and Postdoctoral Services, will share his expertise in order to frame the underlying aspects that make the effort of an IDP worth the effort, as well as different strategies that you can employ to get the most out of an IDP conversation. Bill will also cover how you can adapt these strategies to help your trainees establish a COVID plan by working together to establish short-term and long-term goals that can provide much-needed structure during the current crisis. This workshop will include a presentation, small-group discussions of case studies using Zoom's breakout rooms, and large-group discussion/Q&A.

Mental Health in a Pandemic: Q&A for Faculty

Date: April 30, 2020

Effective Strategies for IDPs for the Partial Resumption of Lab Research

Date: May 26, 2020

Bill Lindstaedt

To help you determine how to effectively guide your trainees through an Independent Development Plan (IDP), this workshop will focus on key components of effective IDPs and IDP conversations. Bill Lindstaedt, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Career Advancement, International and Postdoctoral Services, will share his expertise in order to frame the underlying aspects that make the effort of an IDP worth the effort, as well as different strategies that you can employ to get the most out of an IDP conversation. Bill will also cover how you can adapt these strategies to help your trainees establish a COVID plan by working together to establish short-term and long-term goals that can provide much-needed structure during the current crisis. This iteration of a previously-delivered workshop will is aimed at helping faculty think through equitable, team-based approaches for the partial resumption of lab research at UCSF. This workshop will include a presentation, small-group discussions of case studies using Zoom's breakout rooms, and large-group discussion/Q&A.

Tools and Tips for Virtual Learning

Date: June 10, 2020

NIH PI Management and Leadership Course

Date: 2017

Sharpening Your Mentoring Skills

Date: April 2019

Acknowledging and Negotiating the Mentor/Mentee Tensions Inherent in the Research Lab.

Date: April 26-27, 2019

Science of Bias and Microaggressions

Date: May 2019