The Center for Advancing Faculty Excellence (CAFE) announces faculty grant recipients for its two main grant programs: the educational research mini-grant program and the Provost’s eFellows grant program.

The educational research mini-grant program, which began in 2011, promotes the scholarship of teaching and learning through funding projects that systematically examine pedagogical practices. The program is designed to help instructors tackle a teaching and learning issue in which a specific, measurable research question is examined to bring about improved student learning, retention or academic success for all students.

Grants total $10,440 for three educational research projects. Grant projects and recipients are:

“Trying to Get It Right: Assessing the Impact of Formal Ethics Education on Undergraduate Engineering Students’ Understanding of Moral Issues”

• Dr. Patrick Gamez, assistant professor of philosophy
• Dr. Amber Henslee, associate professor of psychological science
• Dr. Beth Cudney, associate professor of engineering management and systems engineering
• Dr. Susan Murray, chair and professor of psychological science.

“Three-minute Economic Shorts: Peer Teaching of Introductory Economic Concepts through Student Created Videos”

• Dr. Ana Ichim, assistant professor of economics
• Dr. Radu Puslenghea, assistant teaching professor of economics.

“Impact of Coordinated Community Partnerships and Interdisciplinary Curriculum using Experiential Learning”

• Dr. Clair Kueny, assistant professor of psychological science
• Dr. Beth Cudney, associate professor of engineering management and systems engineering.

The Provost’s eFellows grant program, which began in 2010, was established to improve the learning environment while preserving and maximizing the physical learning facilities available for instruction. CAFE instructional designers provide support to develop the courses using best practices for eLearning.

Grants total $20,770 for six eFellows projects. Grant recipients are:

• Dr. Carleigh Davis, assistant professor of English and technical communication, redesigning research methods in technical communication
• Dr. John Hogan, associate professor of geology, and Dr. Klaus Woelk, associate professor of chemistry, redesigning structural geology lecture, structural geology lab and general chemistry lab
• Dr. Nicolas Libre, assistant teaching professor of civil engineering, redesigning materials testing lab
• Dr. Theresa Odun-Ayo, associate teaching professor, and Dr. Theresa Swift, associate teaching professor, both in electrical and computer engineering, redesigning Electronics 1
• Dr. Michelle Schwartze, assistant teaching professor of teacher education and certification, redesigning curriculum and instruction of the middle school
• Dr. Kelley Wilkerson, assistant teaching professor of materials science and engineering, redesigning a sequence of ceramic engineering labs.