Applications sought for Sustainability Course Development Fellowships
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- The Office of the Vice Provost for Faculty and Academic Affairs at Indiana University Bloomington, in collaboration with the IU Office of Sustainability and the Integrated Program in the Environment, is seeking fellowship program proposals supporting faculty interested in developing courses that engage IU students with sustainability principles.
Now in its sixth year, the Sustainability Course Development Fellowship awards up to $8,000 to faculty interested in cultivating a sustainability component within their field. Preference will be given to courses that incorporate interdisciplinary perspectives on sustainability. The fellowship supports the development of courses at both undergraduate and graduate levels, as well as service-learning courses.
“The Sustainability Course Development program provided resources to enable me to recast my class for an active learning environment that was a powerful transformation for my course," said Tom Evans, a 2013-14 recipient of the award for his class titled "Cartographic and Geographic Information."
"I was able to redesign course materials and activities to create more student engagement and student interaction," said Evans, a professor in the College of Arts and Sciences' Department of Geography and co-director of the Vincent and Elinor Ostrom Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis. "The students embraced these new learning approaches, and I was thrilled by the outcomes in the course."
The idea for an instructional sustainability initiative was first recommended by the Indiana University Task Force on Campus Sustainability in 2008. Since then, the program has supported 12 new initiatives from a variety of schools and departments. Courses emerging from the fellowship program have included "Planting the Seed: Introduction to Sustainable Agriculture," “Understanding Sustainable Social-Ecological Systems Through Institutions and Collective Action” and "Foundations of Leisure."
"These sustainability initiatives have galvanized faculty interest in a set of problems that are global in their reach but local in their solutions," said Tom Gieryn, IU vice provost for faculty and academic affairs.
Awards will be announced at the end of the spring semester. Recipients will be asked to devote the equivalent of eight weeks full time to developing their project during the summer. The deadline for submitting all materials has been extended to Monday, March 3. Guidelines and an application form are available from the Office of the Vice Provost for Faculty and Academic Affairs website.
Related Links
Bill Brown, IU Bloomington director of sustainability, examines an item from a sustainable product design course. Meriem Chida, a lecturer in the Department of Apparel Merchandising and Interior Design, created the course with help from a 2012 Sustainability Course Development Fellowship.
Media Contacts
Katherine Glaser
- IU Bloomington Office of Sustainability
- Office 812-855-2678
- keglaser@indiana.edu