Provost's 2016 Faculty Retreat Grants

Update: Unfortunately, due to current budget uncertainties, the Faculty Retreat grants have been suspended for this year.

About

A limited number of grants are available, to be awarded on a competitive basis. There will be twelve grants of $4,000 each for projects that meet the objectives, terms, and criteria described below.

Initiative

These grants enable recipients to design and implement an instructional enhancement that has a high probability of improving education at Illinois. The projects most likely to be funded are those inspired by this year’s faculty retreat and aligned with the criteria below. The grant will fund a graduate assistant to assist in the enhancements.

• To support the implementation of teaching enhancements inspired by the faculty retreat
• To seek broad participation from the many disciplines across campus.
• To create a diverse and vibrant community of instructors and graduate students developing educational enhancements and reforms.

Terms

Instructors who attended the faculty retreat may apply for the grants, provided they accept the following conditions:

• They will attend an organizational meeting in mid-May to meet and introduce their projects. Additional meetings during the academic year will be determined.
• They will provide a brief summary of the project for the 2017 Faculty Retreat.

Criteria

The Teaching Advancement Board (TAB) and the Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning (CITL) will evaluate proposals and present recommendations for awards to the Provost. Selection criteria include:

• To what extent would the successful completion of the project improve the quality of our students’ learning experience?
• To what extent would the proposed educational enhancements be generalizable across the campus?

Priority will be given to those proposals that build on the 2016 Faculty Retreat theme of “Bringing the Best in Our Students.”  Suggested areas are: innovative strategies, assignments, and/or tools to enhance student engagement and assessment; creative methods and strategies to present information and content in different ways, expanding the learning environment.

Proposals

The link to the online submission will be available at the conclusion of the retreat, Friday, March 4, 2016.

Information required:

• Instructor name
• Department
• Proposal title
• Course name
• Course number
• When will these enhancements be implemented? (Fall 2016, Spring 2017, and/or Summer 2017)
• Description of course enhancement (250 words)
• Department Chair/Head approval

Timeline

• Application deadline: April 4, 2016
• Award announcement: Early May 2016
• First meeting: Mid-May 2016