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Community of Learning Initiative
The Dean of Arts and Letters—together with the Office for Undergraduate Studies and the Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts (ISLA)—is soliciting proposals for a new project aimed at the enhancement of undergraduate intellectual life through shared reading and discussion. The Community of Learning Initiative (CLI) to be launched during the 2004-2005 academic year, will provide up to four grants to individual departments for the creation of pilot programs that: (1) encourage majors and minors to read (during the summer months) and discuss (during the academic year) targeted works of scholarly merit or acute interest; (2) promote student-led disucssion; (3) provide for structured dialogue about critical issues outside of the classroom; (4) enable senior Arts and Letters undergraduates to refine critical thinking skills and develop the capacity to lead and participate in rigorous debate about issues of perennial human concern; and (5) encourage advanced students to serve as mentors and models of the intellectual virtues for those at or near the beginning of their educational pilgrimage; and (6) foster the disciplines of the mind and habits of the heart that ennoble lifelong learning and facilitate student engagement of the liberal arts and the Catholic intellectual tradition.
The ideal proposal should provide a framework for a three-year program in which:
- A vibrant, cohesive, and inclusive intellectual community of majors (and minors) is created within the host department
- Incoming juniors discuss a selected text with faculty mentors in workshops of 12 or fewer students (Year One)
- Incoming seniors serve as leaders for discussion groups consisting of sophomores and juniors—after having reeived guidance from faculty mentors on how best to stimulate conversation in small groups (Year 2)
- Incoming seniors continue to serve as small group facilitators (Year 3)
The proposal should also offer a projection of the number of student participants, a timetable for implementation, procedures for the selection of texts, the name of the program coordinator, and criteria to be used in the evaluation of program effectiveness.
Departments serving less than 50 majors will be eligible for grants of $5,000 while those serving 50 or more will be eligible to receive $10,000. These funds are for pedagogical and other endeavors that enhance undergraduate intellectual life (e.g., research, student travel, course development, public forums, visiting speakers, etc.) The College will assume the cost for the purchase of all texts. Faculty members that agree to provide administrative oversight for these departmental initiatives will receive an annual research stipend of $1,000. An annual report assessing programmatic strengths, suggesting areas for improvement, and detailing best practices is due at the end of the academic year.
Proposals should be submitted to the Office for Undergraduate Studies by 12 February for programs to be initiated in the summer. Award announcements will be made in early March. For additional information, please contact: Stuart Greene,
Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies.
