Chancellor’s Leadership Fellowships Awarded to Dingo, Kleinman and Rahhal

The Office of Faculty Development is pleased to announce that three faculty members have been awarded Chancellor’s Leadership Fellowships for the 2022-23 academic year: Rebecca Dingo, professor of English; Ken Kleinman, professor and associate Chair of biostatistics and epidemiology; and Tammy Rahhal, senior lecturer II and associate chair of teaching and chief undergraduate advisor of psychological and brain sciences. 

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Provost and Senior Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Tricia Serio says “I am thrilled to work with and learn alongside the Chancellor’s Leadership Fellows this year. Their projects integrate their expertise and knowledge of our campus with a new context to advance both their leadership development and our mission in new and creative ways.”

The Chancellor’s Leadership Fellowship (CLF) program seeks to cultivate future campus leaders by offering a half-time, one-year temporary appointment to an administrative area on campus and providing mentoring from the leader of the host unit. In addition, fellows are expected to launch a significant program during their fellowship year.

The CLF nomination and application process commences annually in January. Full-time tenured faculty, senior lecturers, and librarians on continuing appointments are eligible for the fellowship which is administered by the Office of Faculty Development. A list of past Chancellor's Leadership Fellows can be found on the OFD website.

2022 Chancellor’s Leadership Fellows:

Rebecca Dingo, professor of English, will be assessing faculty scholarly writing support offered by the Office of Faculty Development and making recommendations for further program development and sustainability. Dingo will be working with Michelle Budig, Senior Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs.

Dingo’s research focuses on feminist approaches in rhetoric and writing, including faculty and graduate writing support and development. She recently stepped down as UMass Writing Program director and is now completing a monograph with Rachel Riedner titled Beyond Affirmation: Reckoning with Race, Nation, Imperialism, and Exceptionalism in Feminist Rhetorical Theory (under contract with University of Pittsburgh Press) and has been developing courses in contemporary rhetorical theory and writing human rights.

“As a CLF, I hope to gain more knowledge of how OFD and UMass can best support faculty writers and scholarly production,” says Dingo. “At the end of my fellowship, I plan to offer advice for how UMass can create a sustainable, strong, and mutually supportive community of faculty writers across campus.”

Ken Kleinman, professor and associate chair of biostatistics and epidemiology, will examine the financial implications and equity potential of UMass Flex, the university’s flexible learning program. Kleinman will be working with John Wells, senior vice provost for lifelong learning, and Jim Kurose, associate chancellor of partnership and innovation.

In Kleinman’s research, he works collaboratively with infectious disease specialists to make hospitals and nursing homes safer by slowing the spread of superbugs, as well as epidemiologists who explore how maternal and early life exposures affect humans into adulthood. Kleinman works to answer the statistical questions that emerge from these projects.

“I hope to provide UMass with a planning tool that helps us accomplish more and succeed better as a campus into the future,” says Kleinman. “For myself, I'm looking forward to learning more about how campus finances work, how the different schools and colleges budget and plan, and to gaining more insight into the technological tools I'll be using.”

Tammy Rahhal, senior lecturer II and associate chair of teaching and chief undergraduate advisor of psychological and brain sciences, will focus on developing pedagogy and resources to enhance hybrid classrooms. Rahhal will be working with Claire Hamilton, associate provost and director of the Center for Teaching and Learning, and Heather Sharpes-Smith, executive director for Online Educational Technology.

Rahhal’s primary focus as a faculty member is teaching and advising for all undergraduate psychology majors. In her leadership roles, she has worked to help create a new undergraduate curriculum, grow available advising services, increase the department’s online course presence, and provide mentoring and professional development opportunities for psychological and brain sciences instructors.

“My hope is to both build on my own existing knowledge and practice using flexible/hybrid pedagogy in large, general education courses and also educate other instructors of these methods so that UMass can provide all students accessibility to excellent classroom experiences that will lead to greater student success,” says Rahhal.