March 31

Join us on April 8 or 9 for a virtual town hall to hear the latest updates on Charlotte’s general education program. We’ll highlight key initiatives, share findings from the 2024 assessment of the communication and critical thinking competencies, and provide details about the Fall 2025 launch of Foundations in American Democracy courses (AMDM, HIST, POLS, and CAPI 1575s). Bring your questions, share your insights, and join the conversation as we continue to shape the future of our general education curriculum and strengthen our commitment to faculty and student learning.

• Tuesday, April 8, 2:00 – 2:50 PM, via Zoom (Register) 
• Wednesday, April 9, 11:00 – 11:50 AM, via Zoom (Register)

Atkins Library has re-launched its digital heritage repository, Goldmine, and institutional repository, Niner Commons, using TIND library technology solutions. 

Goldmine is the home for digital primary source materials from Atkins Library’s Special Collections and University Archives that relate to Charlotte’s regional history. Goldmine includes content from manuscript collections, university archives, and oral histories. The TIND DA (digital archives) platform provides:

• a cleaner, more intuitive interface, with improved searching and browsing
• improved search and downloading for publicly available files
• greater stability and improved multimedia playback

Niner Commons is UNC Charlotte’s institutional repository, an Open Access platform to disseminate the scholarship created by UNC Charlotte researchers. This platform hosts all of UNC Charlotte’s theses & dissertations, peer-reviewed journal articles, conference proceedings, working papers, videos, open education resources (OER), research data and more. The TIND IR (institutional repository) platform:

• includes statistics on usage for each item in the repository, so users can track how many views and downloads the work receives
• streamlines search within the repository, making scholarship easier to find
• enables faculty, staff, and students who submit items to the repository to create a digital profile showcasing their scholarship
• provides improved multimedia playback

Users of the repositories who find broken links or other issues with the new platforms are encouraged to email spec-coll@charlotte.edu for any issues with Goldmine, or ninercommons@charlotte.edu for NinerCommons.

Nexus: Networking Across Disciplines fosters the emergence of interdisciplinary research teams by providing faculty with structured opportunities to learn about one another’s research and brainstorm areas of mutual interest. Through a series of summer workshops, Nexus supports the initial stages of project development as faculty formulate shared research questions, consider analytical strategies, and identify potential funding sources.

Nexus 2025 aims to foster interdisciplinary research collaborations that advance our understanding of community health and well-being and inform the development of innovative, evidence-based solutions to persistent challenges. Workshops will be held on May 15-16 and August 13, 2025, with working groups expected to brainstorm ideas over the summer. Details and application forms are available on the Nexus website. Applications are due by 5:00 p.m. on Monday, April 7.

Nexus 2025 is organized by the College of Humanities & Earth and Social Sciences and the Division of Research with support from the Cato College of Education, the College of Health and Human Services, and the College of Computing and Informatics. Questions can be directed to CHESS Associate Dean for Research and Interdisciplinary Collaboration Beth Whitaker.

urbanCORE, the hub of UNC Charlotte’s engaged scholarship ecosystem, invites faculty to two April events supporting their community-engaged research agendas:

RPT Narrative Workshop

Wednesday, April 9, 10:00 – 11:00 AM, Sycamore 306 (Register)

Draw on your values, goals, and accomplishments to develop the story of your work and elevate the integrity of your engaged scholarship. This workshop will be led by Dr. Holly Middleton, urbanCORE, a former tenured faculty member in English with ten years’ experience supporting faculty applying for tenure and promotion.

Data Sandbox: Charlotte Regional Data Trust

Thursday, April 17, 10:00 – 11:00 AM, Online (Register)

Join Sydney Idzikowski & Kailas Venkitasubramanian from the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute to explore the Data Trust—a tool integrating data from over 55 community organizations–for community-based research. Learn about available data, request processes, and ethical data use.