Course Develpoment Grant - 2006

Summer stipends are available to encourage course development in the areas described below.  Faculty members may elect to work as a team or individually. For those working individually, the stipend amount is $2000, with $500 for consulting with other faculty members, purchasing materials, and/or attending conferences or workshops.   Interdisciplinary teams may work together to develop one or more courses to be offered the following year as individual offerings or as team-taught courses.  The stipend amount for faculty teams varies by the number of faculty members participating and related activities.  

Applications should be in the form of a Research and Professional Development Grant submitted by March 20, 2006.  (For this year only, this deadline is not the same as the deadline for traditional Research and Profession Development Grants).  Each award should result in a course proposal submitted to the department and APPC, a draft syllabus, and a commitment to teach the course within the next two academic years.  Faculty interested in developing new courses in other areas should consider applying through the regular Research and Professional Development Grant process.

Science Technology and Society
This new requirement concerns methodological analysis, historical context, or discussion of the social ramifications of some aspect of natural science or technology.  Advances in scientific understanding of the natural world and the technological advances that have accompanied it have radically transformed contemporary life.  These courses are intended to complement the material students are exposed to in their natural science courses and laboratories by extending their understanding of science and technology to the societal context and to provide students with the ability to appreciate their real life ramifications.

Diversity
The Chang-Burton Fund provides faculty development opportunities pertaining to increasing diversity in the curriculum and the campus community.  Funds are available for new courses that address or reflect multicultural diversity or revision of courses to give them greater racial and cultural breadth and depth, and it is our hope that these courses will address either one of the cultural diversity requirements. This requirement consists of two courses designed to help students develop a fuller appreciation of human diversity, including such dimensions of diversity as race, ethnicity, religion, gender, class, sexual orientation and disability.  Such courses focus on the cultures, contributions and experiences of peoples who have been historically underrepresented in the curriculum and/or on analysis of the construction of social identity and social difference.  

o    One of the two courses must have a principal focus on peoples whose practices and beliefs have been shaped in significant ways by an historical tradition separate from that of Western Europe.

o    One of the two courses must have as a principal focus dimensions of diversity within the U.S. context or dimensions of diversity in a conceptual or comparative context.  In 2006 we especially encourage courses meeting this domestic/conceptual diversity requirement.

Foreign Language
We encourage faculty in the foreign languages to develop optional ways to satisfy the 202 level.  As part of the curriculum reform, the faculty allowed for the possibility for an experience using the language in context in place of the language course designated 202.  Such an experience can be study abroad, a substantial service-learning experience, an internship, or a fourth course focusing on the culture and cultural products in the language. This option requires student petition and approval of the language department in question.  We hope that departments will develop one or more alternatives that students can petition to participate in.  The outcome for this initiative may be, instead of a course syllabus and a commitment to teaching the course, publication of options available to the students and verification of departmental approval communicated to the APPC.

First Year Seminars
We encourage faculty from departments that traditionally offer very few first year seminars (generally one or fewer seminars each year) to develop new first year seminars.

KMC/shm