The Office of the Provost has announced the next round of grant recipients for the Course Improvement Grant and Educational Advancement Fund, both established in 2021. Ten faculty members from three of Vanderbilt’s schools and colleges will receive support for their teaching.
“I’m consistently impressed at the creativity that our faculty bring to their teaching, and I’m delighted to support that creativity through this program,” said Derek Bruff, assistant provost and executive director of the Center for Teaching, which manages the programs with the Office of Faculty Development. The grant awardees will participate in a learning community at the Center for Teaching to learn and share experiences with other grantees.
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; seminars and other programs to improve the quality of teaching; or small-scale studies of new instructional methods or materials.
The Course Improvement Grant awardees are:
- Kejia Hu, assistant professor of operations management, “Digital transformation in education of operations management”
- Erin York, assistant professor of political science, “Interactive graphics for intuitive statistical learning”
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.
The Educational Advancement Fund awardees are:
- Stacey Floyd-Thomas, associate professor of ethics and society, “Epistemological lexicon for critical race theory and social ethics”
- Elliot McCarter, senior lecturer in Asian studies, “Living Asian”
- Stacy Clifford Simplican, senior lecturer in gender and sexuality studies, “Building a new course: Reproductive justice in transnational contexts”
- Meredyth Wegener, senior lecturer in neuroscience, “Aspiring anti-racist educators of Vanderbilt
For more information about the teaching grants, including eligibility standards, proposals requirements and funding guidelines, visit the program website. Questions about the program may be sent to cft@vanderbilt.edu. The next call for proposals will be announced in September.