BFS Course Design Grants: April 15 |
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March 18, 2014, Volume 60, No. 26 |
Together with the Office of the Provost, the Environmental Sustainability Advisory Committee and the Netter Center for Community Partnerships, the Benjamin Franklin Scholars program is pleased to announce the BFS Course Design Grants. This year's recipients included courses on "Living Deliberately: Monk, Saint and the Contemplative Life," "Introduction to Sound Studies" and "Global Digital Activism."
We will consider granting $2,000-$5,000 to exceptional proposals for the development of new BFS seminars (for more information on BFS, see www.upenn.edu/curf/bfs). The money is to be used to facilitate innovative course components that may have expenses attached to them, with up to $2,000 available as a course development stipend for the faculty member's research fund. Proposals submitted by April 15, 2014 will be given full consideration.
Standing faculty at Penn in any of the 12 Schools are eligible and courses may be proposed for any future semester, beginning with fall 2014. We look to supporting innovations in the types of materials assigned, in classroom task design, in the format of graded assignments as well as new team teaching, especially across Schools. Four kinds of courses are especially encouraged:
Theme-Year Courses: Courses that develop next year's theme—Year of Health— with special interest in those that cross historical and disciplinary boundaries.
Green Seminars: Green Seminars will develop innovative approaches to sustainability across the many domains in which this topic is relevant. We look for engagement with local political issues or global environmental initiatives.
Learning and Research with the Community: These courses will encourage students to develop their learning through hands-on engagement in the community, such as learning by teaching in local classrooms, improving health and nutrition in a school and community or exploring Philadelphia's cultural venues. These Academically Based Community Service courses (ABCS) and experiences help students to become active, participating citizens of a democratic society.
Ideas In Action: These courses will design new ways of engaging students in active learning. They ask students to experience what they study, whether that be a course that brings students to work in a cognitive science lab or a course on monasticism that asks students to live by the ascetic rules of an order.
Proposal Format: Proposals should be under 500 words. They should outline the subject matter, the innovations planned and the reasoning as to why these particular initiatives are promising. A one-page draft syllabus, outlining weekly topics, readings and assignments, should accompany the proposal along with a one-page budget, if applicable and an endorsement from the department chair.
Please submit documents to BFS Associate Director Linda Wiedmann, wiedmann@upenn.edu Faculty grant recipients will attend two sessions with the BFS team and other winners.
—Peter T. Struck, Classical Studies,
Director, Benjamin Franklin Scholars
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