Senior Faculty Community for Teaching Excellence
| description: | This community’s purpose is to assist seasoned faculty in enhancing teaching interest and effectiveness by enabling them to participate in a two-semester experience of sharing in a community of scholars who value teaching, meet for discussions, and pursue individual teaching projects. |
| amount: | Participants receive a one-course reduction in their teaching assignment for one semester and $500 to support a teaching project. |
| eligibility: | You may apply if you are a full-time faculty member who has taught at Miami University for at least seven years. If you receive this award, you will be eligible to participate again after another seven years of teaching. |
| selection: | A subcommittee of CELT will select up to eight participants. |
| submission: | Please send: * an electronic copy of your application to Melody Barton <bartonm@muohio.edu> * the original copy of your signature page via campus mail to Melody Barton, CELT. |
| due date: | Applications are due August 30. Selection is announced in early September. |
Purpose and Description
Please see the section about Faculty Learning Communities to obtain information about this program's general goals, selection criteria, and follow-up.
This community provides two semesters of special activities related to teaching and establishes a forum for senior faculty from several disciplines in which they may investigate many facets of teaching. It is designed for faculty who have taught at Miami for at least seven years and is inspired by, but differs from, the Alumni Teaching Scholars Community (for early-career faculty) in format and expectations. The community is coordinated by Muriel Blaisdell (WCP).
Each year the activities vary somewhat but are likely to include the following:
- Discussions. The group’s seminars and roundtable settings focus
on such topics as research
in student learning, integrating teaching and research, introducing new technologies,
videotaping teaching to enhance effectiveness, ethical dilemmas in teaching, teaching
nontraditional students, and cooperative learning. Reading interest groups may emerge from discussions. - National teaching conferences. The Program funds the participants’ attendance at Miami’s Lilly Conference on College Teaching and another national conference such as Lilly-West, American Association for Higher Education, or American Association of Colleges & Universities.
- Teaching projects. Each participant designs and carries out a project for which he or she receives financial support of up to $500. Projects might include designing a capstone course or obtaining new expertise in a teaching technology or methodology. The project need not be fully designed before beginning to participate in the community.
- Writing. The program provides an opportunity for participants to write papers, alone or together, on pedagogy in their disciplines or interdisciplinary fields. The Lilly Conferences on College Teaching and the Journal on Excellence in College Teaching can provide a national forum for papers accepted for presentation or publication.
- Teaching partnerships. Pairs or groups of participants in the community may form teaching partnerships in which members visit each others’ classes and interview each others’ students. The New Jersey “Partners in Learning” program has had success with similar exchanges.
- Student associates. Each participant selects one or two students who provide student perspectives on the topics and practices covered in the Program.
Application Procedure
The application form asks for the following information:
- Your interest in the following areas, specific ideas on what you would like
to do, and contributions you can make toward:
- Developing an individual teaching project
- Participating in a reading interest group (new areas and those in which you have expertise)
- Pairing with a community participant in a different department (in order to visit each other’s classes, pursue joint topics, etc.)
- Writing and presenting a paper, locally or nationally, individually or with others, on college teaching and disciplinary or interdisciplinary pedagogy
- Developing portfolios: student, course or teaching
- Interacting with a student consultant
- Discovering and incorporating ways that difference can enhance teaching and learning
- Your interest in the following objectives, specifics on what you would like
to do, and contributions you can make toward:
- Honoring teaching as an intellectual pursuit
- Integrating teaching and research into classroom experiences
- Understanding new disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives
- Advocating and developing educational and pedagogical innovation
If you are interested in applying, discuss your participation with your department chair. You must obtain the endorsement of your chair and dean when you apply. You will need to plan for release time from one course for fall or spring semester. Upon request, your department will receive funds for course replacement coverage at the rate of $700 to $800 per credit hour.
Recent Recipients
2001-2002
- Peter E. Carels
- Lawrence W. Sherman
- George S. Vascik
2000-2001-2002
- Al Cady (ZOO-MUM)
- Peg Faimon (ART)
- Sherrie Inness (ENG-MUH)
- Jim Kelly (PHL)
- Brenda Mitchell (MUS)
- Mysore Narayan (EGR)
- Dan Seiver (ECO)
- Diana-Maria Spillman (PHS)
