Dr. Sarah Prior is creating joy and wellness with a new Creating Inclusive Excellence Grant

September 5, 2025 - Karessa Weir

MSU Sociology Associate Professor Sarah Prior has received a Creating Inclusive Excellence Grant from the university Institutional Diversity and Inclusion office (IDI) for her project with Dr. Marcie Ray (College of Music) to focus on fixed-term faculty “hope, well-being and resilience.” 

“We wanted to create a faculty community where fixed-term faculty feel valued, seen and are able to focus on hope and well-being,” Prior said.  

Prior has been a teaching-focused/fixed-term faculty member in MSU Sociology for eight years. She knows that having a community of similarly situated peers makes a huge difference in well-being. Defined as faculty without a tenured position, these positions come with titles such as adjunct professor, instructor, academic specialist, teaching-focused or fixed-term faculty and make up nearly 70 percent of faculty nationwide. 

According to a report from the American Association of University Professors,  nationally, the majority of fixed-faculty are female and racially minoritized faculty members.  

“In monthly meetings, we aim to create an inclusive and engaging opportunity for professional development and professional and personal transformation for fixed-term and continuing stream faculty. The fellows program aims to educate participants in the importance and challenges of wellness so that they may go on to have impacts in their own institutional spaces. The ongoing mentorship and network program will offer opportunities to continue to question and refine their work in the future. The program has the potential to be transformative for participants and to bring joy and hope into their academic lives,” Prior and Ray wrote in their proposal. 

Prior and Ray are choosing to focus on the well-being of fixed-term faculty with their project as a step toward empowering faculty to advocate and support themselves and their peers. They will create a group a diverse group of faculty from a variety of different colleges and disciplines to spend focused time on crafting their own paths and prioritizing well-being. This group will learn work on professional development, wellness training,  

The grant will also allow Prior and Ray to offer workshops on professional development and to provide specific professional development funds for those in the community. 

“We want to really focus on how we create a community of hope and a community of resilience for the fixed-term faculty at MSU,” Prior said.