Letter from the Dean Regarding New
Course Proposal Guidelines
Dear Faculty:
As you probably know, the University has received a grant from the Lilly Endowment to support a University-wide set of programs to help students integrate values and vocation. The four-year grant provides for sixteen summer stipends of $2,500 for faculty to develop courses that will support this project. I'm writing now to solicit your proposals for such courses.
The project seeks courses that explore how questions of values, ethics, or faith relate to students' vocational choices. We welcome interdisciplinary or team-taught courses. We are particularly eager to support courses that include a service-learning focus or component.
A wide variety of courses would satisfy our criteria. During 2002 – 03 we funded Sid Brown's “Buddhism and the Environment,” Chris Conn's “Philosophical Issues in Christianity,” David Haskell's “Food for Thought” program, Martin Knoll's revised hydrology course that raises ethical and moral issues surrounding the Ocoee River, and John Palisano's course on bioterrorism. Another course in the geology of the Western United States was added in the spring of 2003 (Bran Potter), as well as one in micro-economics (Yasmeen Mohiuddin). For the 2004-2005 academic year, courses were developed in the anthropology of education, ethics in business, ethics in computer science, and literature and ethnic/cultural identity. For details, please see the Lilly web site: http://www.sewanee.edu/lillyproj/facdev.html .
The language of vocation, though often associated with ordination, embraces many professions and life paths. We are eager to support courses across the curriculum that raise the questions of vocational choice, either broadly or in such specific areas as medicine, law, business, teaching, or politics, as well as the ministry.
We should also clarify how service-learning can be a component of the proposed course. We understand service-learning to involve learning through working in a service organization or doing service-oriented work in some other setting. Examples of such course-components might be working on a hospital ethics committee, at a bank learning how it provides community development loans, at an environmental policy organization, and so forth.
Courses need not have service-learning components. Those courses which do identify a service learning aspect should have service genuinely tied to the mission of the course. In other words, it is not an add-on but an extension of the learning that takes place within the classroom. Service learning experiences may even vary per student, or group of students, but are, nevertheless, connected vitally to the syllabus and the instructor's intentions for learning within the classroom. A reflection component in the course will reinforce fruitful service learning.
All College and School of Theology faculty are eligible to apply. School of Theology faculty and College faculty proposing to team-teach a course are eligible as well. All courses proposed -- whether developed by College or School of Theology faculty -- should be open to undergraduates. As with any course offered for undergraduate credit at Sewanee, these courses will be subject to the review of the Curriculum and Academic Policy Committee of the College and approval by the College faculty .
The Lilly Steering Committee and the Center for Teaching will oversee these course development projects. If you have questions or would like to discuss your course proposals, please contact me. You may also contact Jim Goodman (Program Director of the Lilly Theological Exploration of Vocation Program), or Richard O'Connor (Co-Director, Center for Teaching). Instructors whose courses have been accepted are required to commit to meetings with colleagues to present their course plan and, with similarly awarded faculty, to discuss the process of their course's development. In addition, awarded faculty are required to submit – to the Center for Teaching and the Lilly office – a copy of the syllabus prior to the execution of the course. A report of the outcomes from their first teaching year for that course will also be required, along with a sampling of student evaluations of this course and their first experience of teaching it.
If you are interested in applying for a stipend for this summer, please send a letter of application describing your proposed course to Richard O'Connor by Friday, March 25 th, 2005.
Thanks,
Dean of the College