The Center for Teaching is currently accepting applications for the 2021-22 Junior Faculty Teaching Fellows program. The program, now entering its 11th year, has had more than 90 faculty participants from six colleges and schools.
The CFT’s Junior Faculty Teaching Fellowship program provides a set of professional development opportunities for junior faculty to learn about successful teaching practices. Selected fellows will learn to more fully integrate teaching and research, design and refine courses and add to their general repertoire of teaching skills. Most importantly, fellows benefit from engaging in these activities in a community of peers and mentors, including past Junior Faculty Teaching Fellows, senior faculty mentors and CFT senior staff.
“The JFTF program is a great way for junior faculty to hone their teaching practice while also growing their teaching community. Fellows repeatedly come out of the program talking about how much more confident they feel in the choices they make as well as how much value they get from working with the other fellows,” said Cynthia Brame, associate director of the Center for Teaching.
If selected, fellows will engage in a variety of program activities sequenced to help develop more effective and efficient use of time on teaching tasks. Program activities include a seminar on teaching and learning, individual consultations, classroom visits of both senior faculty and peers to observe teaching in action, dinner discussions, and a dinner reflection at the end of the year to share about areas of growth. Junior Faculty Teaching Fellows also receive $2,000 in research funds to enhance their teaching.
The Junior Faculty Teaching Fellowship is open to all full-time faculty who teach in person or virtually and have been at Vanderbilt between one and six years. Preference is given to applicants without tenure, but exceptions are made. In alternate years, including 2021-22, the CFT and the School of Nursing jointly support a cohort of nursing faculty, and VUSN faculty are encouraged to apply for this cohort.
The deadline for applications is Friday, April 30. Applicants should submit an application letter, teaching statement, letter of support from a department chair (or dean for applicants from schools without departments), and curriculum vita. The selection process is confidential, and selection decisions will be made by the Junior Faculty Teaching Fellows Committee. Interested faculty should visit the Junior Faculty Teaching Fellows website to access the application form and for more information about the application process and the program.