Meijer Campus Awarded FTLC Grant

Grand Valley State Universitys Meijer Campus in Holland was awarded the Pew Faculty Teaching and Learning Center (FTLC) Presidential Teaching Initiative Grant in Winter 2009. According to the FTLC, this grant is designed to enable units or interdisciplinary groups to mount broad, imaginative projects that will result in new or revised curricula and/or pedagogy, with the goal of achieving learning outcomes for their majors as specified in their assessment plans. An interdisciplinary team of faculty and administrators from the Meijer Campus (J. Farris, P. Lane, M. Litherland, A. Masko, L. Miller, J. Miller, M. Peraino, J. Stockdale, and J. Verschaeve) applied for the grant hoping to provide increased resources for faculty teaching in Holland as they develop innovative teaching and learning activities. The award will provide resources for faculty led initiatives such as engaging with the Holland community, incorporating interdisciplinary perspectives, or encouraging learning experience that can be shared by multiple classes.

Dr. Marty Litherland, Director of Regional Campuses, sees value in the impact that the grant will have on all individuals involved. As faculty and students come together to examine life's issues and challenges from multiple perspectives and in the context of the 'real' world, learning goes a level beyond understanding facts, concepts, and principles...it has a richness where learning is experiencing and experiencing is learning. 

Any faculty member who teaches at the Meijer Campus in Holland is eligible to receive support for their course(s) in Holland. Dr. Jo Miller has been instrumental in securing the grant and will be working closely with it over the next year. She encourages faculty to apply for resources for any ideas they may have been incubating for years, wishing they had the resources to experiment with any kinds of innovative teaching practices, inside or beyond the classroom. Examples of projects that might be supported are team taught courses, speakers shared by multiple classes, new interdisciplinary courses, service-learning components of courses, courses addressing specific community needs, collaborative projects, etc. In general, course projects that are innovative in nature and provide a rich learning experience for the students are the focus. Faculty members interested in utilizing the grant should contact Dr. Jo Miller at millerj@gvsu.edu.

RSS Feed