Yale Bulletin and Calendar

December 6-13, 1999

Volume 28, Number 15

Gifts support use of new technologies
in teaching and learning

On the heels of her announcement of a new Center for Media Initiatives (see story), Provost Alison F. Richard also announced new resources to support the use of media and technology in teaching and learning at Yale.

The funds come from generous gifts from Richard A. Lumpkin '57 B.A. and from John W. McCredie Jr. '62 B.E., '64 M.Eng. and Yvonne McCredie.

Lumpkin's gift comes from the Lumpkin Family Foundation and will support innovation in, and enhancements of, teaching and learning though information technologies. Specifically, the gift provides an endowment of about $2 million as well as a separate grant of $1 million over five years. The endowment will ensure that Yale faculty and students benefit from developments in computing and communications technologies into the future, while the $1 million grant will jump-start a set of instructional technology activities that include the ITS Innovation Grants Program.

Because the Lumpkin gift actually arrived last year, it has already helped students and instructors. In its first year, the Lumpkin gift supported the new director of instructional computing position within Academic Media & Technology, along with two more staff positions and the first year of the Information Technology Services Innovation Grants Program.

In addition to providing direct assistance to faculty who used technology in their classes for the first time over the last year, these funds have allowed the development of Yale's course tool set on line -- at classes.yale.edu. The faculty's use of classes.yale.edu has grown from 23 classes in the fall of 1998, to 65 in the spring of 1999 to 233 classes this semester; just this semester, more than 3,000 students have logged on to the site.

All told, the Lumpkin donation will fund five years of the ITS Innovation Grants Program. Open to instructors across the University, the program aims to encourage instructors to design and develop new course materials, experiment with new teaching models, and promote active student learning. A critical element of the grants is evaluation of the effectiveness of the new methods in enhancing the quality of instruction at Yale.

The $1 million grant promises to greatly speed the ability of instructors to identify, develop, and adopt effective instructional media and technology. At the same time, the endowment will enable Yale to sustain this support for instructors into the future.

McCredie and McCredie's gift of $5,000 for each of the next five years will fund a grant program to reinforce these initiatives by recognizing the outstanding use of instructional technology in teaching in Yale College.

A $5,000 annual grant will go for each of the next five years to the instructor in Yale College who best uses information technology in his or her teaching. Faculty and students will be able to nominate instructors for grants in the same process that solicits nominations for the Yale College Teaching Prizes. Instructors may use the $5,000 grant to enhance a course already using technology or to build technology into another course.

Through the solicitation of student input, the grants will give faculty and University support programs valuable feedback on the progress of instructional innovation.

For information on the Innovation Grants and related programs, see www.yale.edu/iig.

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