At first, the panel that reviewed this year's applications for 1997-98 Faculty Support Grants faced a major dilemma. It had received 15 "excellent" proposals for ways to use information technologies and electronic resources to improve or enhance teaching and research activities; however, while the grant program -- which is jointly sponsored by the University Library and Information Technology Services ITS -- had nearly doubled its funding level from last year, it still had monies for only five projects.
Then ITS director Dan Updegrove stepped in with his own proposition. "I was so impressed by the creative ideas proposed," he says, "that I offered to raise the ITS contribution to the shared funding pool to end the panel's struggle over selecting only five originally budgeted for support." As a result, six projects were selected for funding this year, receiving a total of $58,000.
Mr. Updegrove and Scott Bennett, University Librarian, recently announced the recipients of those six Faculty Support Grants. The program, now in its second year, offers both professional staff assistance and financial support for graduate student assistance, training equipment and other resources.
The projects selected reflect a range of issues concerning technology and teaching, and the recipients hail from varied academic disciplines. The principal investigators and their descriptions of their proposals follow:
Deborah Applegate, graduate student -- working at teaching on-line teacher-training resources.
Paul Bracken, professor in the School of Management and the political science department -- simulation and multimedia technologies for teaching political science.
Katherine Gill, assistant professor of European Christianity at the Divinity School, and Harry Stout, the Jonathan Edwards Professor of American Christianity -- creating an image database for teaching the history of Christianity.
Mary Miller, professor of the history of art -- using digitized images for classroom instruction.
Cassy Pollack, assistant professor and associate dean for students and master's studies -- long-distance education using World Wide Web-based instruction as a means of positioning the School of Nursing for long-distance learning.
Anne Underhill, assistant professor of anthropology -- integrating the Peabody Museum of Natural History into the classroom.
Beginning in late May, a Web site on the Faculty Support Grants program will be available at www.yale.edu/faculty_instr_support.