Faculty Fellowships for Teaching & Learning Are Announced For 2016-2017

The Center for Faculty Excellence & Innovation (CFEI) has announced the recipients of the 2016-2017 Faculty Fellowships for Teaching & Learning. The recipients are Dr. Frannie Miller of the Economics & Finance Department, whose project is titled “Lions Network Learning – GIS and Data Visualization,” and Dr. Jacqueline Riley of the Curriculum & Instruction Department, whose project is titled “Online Video Library of Effective Lesson Demonstrations.”

This competitive fellowship is available to full-time faculty at Texas A&M University-Commerce. Through the fellowship, CFEI hopes to encourage faculty scholarship, collegiality, collaboration and productivity, so that the faculty will continue to develop as teachers and scholars. The purpose of the fellowship is to bring together colleagues to implement faculty development to sustain dialogues on teaching and learning, encourage concepts and practices for effective teaching and to support both scholarly and creative endeavors.

“For me, being a faculty fellow has been a great experience,” said Dr. Rebecca-Anne Dibbs, 2015-2016 faculty fellow. “The best part has been the external accountability. Knowing that I have to share with the other faculty fellows and the Center for Faculty Excellence what I did every few weeks has really helped me make steady progress not only on this project, but on my other projects as well. It's also helpful to have quiet work space away from my office for the times I really need to write. Having the time and support to work with a student to answer a question that can help us figure out how to improve college mathematics courses has been one of the most enjoyable parts of my job this year.”

To be eligible for the fellowship each year, a candidate must: be a full-time faculty member who has taught for at least one full academic year at A&M-Commerce, be willing to contribute 6-10 hours per week to their project-related activities for the full academic year, and have the endorsement of his/her dean and department head.

The faculty members who are awarded the fellowship will receive a $4,000 stipend for the academic year, one reassigned time for the fall and spring semesters of that year, and an additional $500 to use for attending a conference to present the results of their Faculty Fellow project. The recipients of the fellowship must complete a project designed to enhance teaching and learning, facilitate or organize and advertise several events and/or workshops for faculty each semester that relate to their project, attend monthly meetings of the CFEI Advisory Committee, develop a method of assessment for the effectiveness of their project and its outcomes, and submit a written report to the CFEI that describes their project and assessment of the outcomes. At the end of each fellowship year, each Faculty Fellow's project work will be shared with the university community.