As the new Academic year begins, the Office of the Provost warmly welcomes new faculty members and aims to make their onboarding process as smooth as possible. The Office strives to help new faculty have a seamless transition and integration into the LUMS community whilst also ensuring to make this an exciting journey for them.

For this purpose, the Office of the Provost arranged multiple sessions at the start of Fall semester 2021 (as listed below) for the Faculty to become well acquainted with the key stakeholders and departments that they will regularly liaise and work with.

Session 1: Welcome and Introduction by the Registrar’s Office

This session warmly welcomed new faculty and familiarised them with the mission, vision, and ethical values of LUMS. The LUMS community takes great pride in the principles, morals and ethics it practices as a general norm and encourages new members to help uphold the integrity of these practices and standards of excellence.

The welcome and orientation session was followed by a training on Zambeel, an essential grading and evaluation tool for teachers across LUMS. Hands-on training and becoming proficient in the user interface of Zambeel is a vital skill for LUMS faculty and the Information Systems and Technology (IST) team ensured that all new faculty gained command over the Learning Management Systems they would strongly rely on to evaluate and track student performance.

Session 2: Human Resource and IT Training Module

The next session aimed to give a detailed purview of the Human Resources (HR) policies, framework, and guidelines to the new faculty. It encompassed a thorough briefing of the HR policies applicable to the faculty’s career at LUMS.

Another essential stakeholder, the IST department also elaborated their scope of functions and operations and key areas of collaborative work; they extended their support to the new faculty.

Session 3: Introduction to OSA, CAPS and the Office of Advising

The third session included an introduction to the Office of Student Affairs (OSA), Counselling and Psychological Services (CAPS) and Advising and briefed the new faculty on their integral relationship with these student support services. The offices explained in detail the importance of providing students with career-defining academic advising, counselling and ensuring the well-being of the student body.

Session 4: Training Session by the LUMS Learning Institute (LLI)

The last session was by team LLI, who are experts in learning and teaching methods. They conducted an industrious training session to help equip the new faculty with effective tools for teaching. Team LLI supports, facilitates, and also provides technical support in implementing best teaching practices online as well as in synchronous teaching and in this context offered their full support and assistance to the new faculty.

The sessions concluded with a dinner, arranged by the Office of the Provost in honour of the new faculty members. The LUMS leadership, management and faculty got together for a night of sumptuous food, good company and festivity.