A new blog site provides Vanderbilt faculty involved with the university’s internal funding programs—Trans-Institutional Programs (TIPs), University Courses, Discovery Grants and Research Scholar Grants—a platform from which they can communicate some of the most relevant aspects of their projects.
The blog, called VU BreakThru, was created by the Office of the Provost.
“The university’s internal faculty funding programs serve as primary vehicles for Vanderbilt to invest in its faculty, fostering developments in discovery and learning that promote collaboration and advance disciplinary excellence,” according to the site. “VU BreakThru was established to highlight some of the currently funded projects across all four programs, giving faculty members and students involved with the programs an avenue to communicate key accomplishments, research breakthroughs and more.”
The VU BreakThru homepage displays all of the blog entries posted to date, with the most recent entry at the top of the page. In addition, each of the four internally funded programs has its own tab that includes a brief description of the program and the most recent blogs that relate to it.
For the University Courses program, there is a separate page for each of the four courses offered during the 2016-17 academic year. Each of those pages includes a description of the course and related blog entries. Similarly, there are separate pages for TIPs 2015 awards and TIPs 2016 awards. This specific navigation is designed to allow readers to easily—and quickly—find what they are looking for.
Blog entries primarily focus on research breakthroughs, infrastructure upgrades, events, student immersion and other significant accomplishments achieved by members of the project team that are a direct result of the internal funding opportunity. Students who are either enrolled in University Courses or actively engaged with one of the internally funded projects also have authored blog entries.
The audience for the blog site is primarily internal, with the hope of raising awareness among fellow Vanderbilt faculty and students of the types of projects that have recently won internal funding awards through each of the four programs. Readers are encouraged to actively engage by posting comments or questions, and each page on the site includes social sharing functionality, allowing readers to share posts in a variety of ways.
For comments or questions, contact the Office of Cross-College Initiatives at occi@vanderbilt.edu. TIPs-specific questions can be directed to TIPs@vanderbilt.edu. For information about blog content, contact Christian Anderson at christian.anderson@vanderbilt.edu.