2017-18 Provost’s General Education Course Enhancement Grant Competition
Teach what excites you! Connect your discipline and expertise with General Education!
The General Education Course Enhancement Grant Competition is designed to promote the ongoing enhancement of UConn’s General Education curriculum through the development of new courses or course revisions. In an effort to improve course availability in particular areas of the curriculum, we encourage proposals addressing priorities listed below. Please note, however, that proposals for any General Education course development will be considered. All proposals are judged on their academic merit and their overall potential for expanding and improving General Education at UConn. Please feel free to contact GEOC Chair Eric Schultz if you have questions about the appropriateness of a proposal idea for the competition.
This year’s competition encourages proposers to develop courses around one or both of two themes.
Priorities of this year’s competition:
1) Integration
General Education can do more than expose students to diverse subject matter and make them “well-rounded.” General Education courses can help to make connections so that students can integrate what they are learning in different subject areas, with service learning and extracurricular activities, and with their lives outside the University. With this year’s competition, we encourage proposers to submit courses that devote substantial attention to developing such connections. While such connections are made in interdisciplinary courses, we are most interested in courses offered by faculty with expertise in discipline-specific topics who will place these topics in broader contexts.
2) Environment and Sustainability
Following the University Senate’s charge to the General Education Oversight Committee (GEOC) to “investigate ways of incorporating an environmental literacy requirement into the university’s general education program,” the GEOC invites proposers to submit CA1, CA2, CA3, Q, or W courses that incorporate elements of environment and sustainability into the course.
Approvals:
All proposals require department head or program director approval. Note that receiving a Provost’s General Education Course Enhancement Grant does not guarantee approval of the course by GEOC or other curriculum committees; all General Education course action requests must still be submitted and approved by one or more departments, schools or colleges, GEOC, the Senate Curricula and Courses Committee, and the University Senate.
Awards:
Awards are for one year and may vary from $1,000 to $7,500 per proposal. The award may be applied to summer salary, course-related expenses, or to a faculty member’s ledger 2 research account. This amount is inclusive of fringe benefits and a budget form is required to justify proposed expenses. If additional funding is needed, awardees may reapply to the competition for the same course within two academic years of their first award, i.e. a proposer who is awarded in AY 2017-18 can reapply in AY 2018-19 or AY 2019-20.
Proposal Deadline:
November 6, 2017
Who May Apply: Regular tenured, tenure-track, and non-tenure-track faculty from any University of Connecticut campus may apply. This program is open to faculty in all disciplines. An application may be submitted by one or more individuals, but must have the written commitment of support, including teaching assistantships if required, of a sponsoring program or department. The department(s) must agree to offer the course every year or every other year for at least five years at one or more of the UConn campuses.
Evaluation Criteria:
The proposal may focus on significantly enhancing the content or pedagogy of an existing course or developing a new course. It should very clearly explain how the course meets UConn’s broad goals of general education as well as the specific criteria for the given content area(s) (Arts & Humanities; Social Sciences; Science & Technology; Diversity & Multiculturalism) and/or competencies (W, Q) as described in UConn’s General Education Guidelines geoc.uconn.edu/geoc-guidelines/. Student learning outcomes and ways of assessing them must be outlined. Successful proposals will serve as a model for future efforts in strengthening UConn’s General Education curriculum. Other criteria that will be viewed favorably in judging proposals are availability on regional campuses, open to non-majors, large classes, and those that are directed at the priorities of Integration and/or Environment & Sustainability. Lists of winners and examples of successful proposals from previous competitions can be found at geoc.uconn.edu/course-development-grant-competition/. Faculty planning to redesign a large-enrollment General Education course should consider submitting a proposal to the Provost’s Large Course Redesign Grant Initiative (announcement pending at cetl.uconn.edu).
Proposal Format and Submission:
Please follow the proposal format, which can also be found at http://geoc.uconn.edu/course-development-grant-competition/. The text of the proposal should be no more than three (3) pages (at least 10 point font, 1 inch margins) and include:
A clear statement of the project’s relation to General Education requirements (broad and specific)
Course objectives (including student learning outcomes)
A plan for the assessment of student learning (how will it be measured?) once the course is offered.
Each proposal should include 1) the completed application, 2) a budget form that gives a reasonably detailed explanation of how funds will be used, and 3) a statement of support from the appropriate program director(s) or department head(s) [an email is fine]. An electronic copy of the proposal should be sent to GEOC@uconn.edu with the Subject Line “Provost’s General Education Course Enhancement Grant.”
Evaluation Committee:
Proposals will be reviewed by a committee of faculty and representatives from:
Applicable GEOC subcommittees
The Instructional Design and Development Group in the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning
A pool of previous competition winners
Requirements for Awarded Proposals:
Faculty who receive funding for their proposal will be required to do the following:
Attend the awards reception for current winners
Submit a Curriculum Action Request (CAR) form and full syllabus for the course approval process
Attend a GEOC meeting to report on course progress
Submit a final report by the specified deadline
Project Timetable:
Nov. 6, 2017 Submission Deadline
Dec. 2017 Awards announced
Jan. 2018 Funding for any supply requests paid out to awardees
May/June 2018 Summer salary paid out to awardees who requested it
Sept./Oct. 2018 Course Action Request forms submitted to GEOC to add or revise the proposed course
Spring or Fall 2019 Course taught for the first time
April 2019 Final report due
Contact:
For further information, contact Eric Schultz (Chair, General Education Oversight Committee) at eric.schultz@uconn.edu or (860) 486-4692
For more information, contact: Eric Schultz at eric.schultz@uconn.edu