The Office of the Provost has announced the inaugural round of recipients for the Course Improvement Grant and Educational Advancement Fund that were announced in April. Ten faculty members across three of Vanderbilt’s schools and colleges will receive support for their teaching. See below for a complete list of awardees.
“This innovative group of faculty has some great ideas about how to improve their students’ learning experiences,” said Cynthia Brame, associate director of the Center for Teaching. “I’m delighted to see them get this support and to see what impacts their changes make.”
The Educational Advancement Fund provides faculty with additional funds to support excellence in the classroom through continued pedagogical advancement and long-term educational transformation. The key criterion is that proposals promise long-term educational effects not only for the applicant, but also for the larger Vanderbilt teaching community.
Course Improvement Grants aim to promote excellence in teaching within a single course or course section. Funding is used to support activities such as acquiring or developing course-related materials and seminars and other programs to improve the quality of teaching, studies and experimental tests of new instructional methods and programs.
For more information about the teaching grants, including eligibility standards, proposal requirements and funding guidelines, visit the program website. Questions about the program may be emailed to cynthia.brame@vanderbilt.edu. The next funding round will occur in the fall.
Grant awardees and funding application focus
Educational Advancement Fund
- Divya Chaudhry, senior lecturer in Asian Studies; “Improv for language learning and promoting intellectual risk-taking.”
- Carolina Palacios, senior lecturer in Spanish; “A transformative learning approach for FL2 Spanish students.”
Course Improvement Grant
- Tucker Biddlecombe, associate professor of choral studies; “Choral library modernization.”
- Jessica Gilpin, senior lecturer in biological sciences; “Incorporating student feedback in introductory biology to increase learners’ sense of belonging.”
- William Grissom, associate professor of biomedical engineering; “Cloud-hosted Python notebook for teaching biomedical signals and systems.”
- Allison Leich Hilbun, senior lecturer in biological sciences; “Compare studies of 3D materials to creating quizzes to consider whether learning strategy outshines motivation in memory retention.”
- Nozomi Imai, lecturer in Asian studies; “Use of Adobe editing software to make innovative learning videos for elementary Japanese classes.”
- Neil Kelley, senior lecturer and research assistant professor of earth and environmental sciences; “Restoration and rehabilitation of Vanderbilt fossil teaching collection.”
- Asami Nakano, lecturer in Asian studies; “Incorporating Japanese cultural experiences for Japanese language course.”
- Chiara Sulprizio, senior lecturer in classical and Mediterranean studies; “Italian language enhancement for Maymester course in Rome.”