The Investments Needed For Undergraduate Success and Equity (INFUSE) initiative supports departments and faculty across campus who are working to make teaching improvements that increase student success and achieve equitable student outcomes while enhancing the teaching culture.
The INFUSE initiative is particularly interested in projects that align with college or university priorities for student success and retention. These include projects to reduce or eliminate equity gaps for students, increase students’ sense of belonging, and/or address the barriers students encounter as they progress through a course or degree program.
Under the INFUSE initiative, groups of faculty will be eligible to receive up to $5,000 for projects starting in spring 2021. Initiative organizers encourage departments to engage in discussion around the potential uses of these funds before submitting a proposal, as funding is limited. In addition, organizers encourage proposals that engage more than one or two faculty so that the investments have the potential to include broader impacts across a department or the larger campus. However, in light of the current challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, organizers are open to proposals submitted by individual faculty, but will limit the total award amount for individual grants to $1,500.
While the focus is broad, each project should include the following components:
• New exploration and adoption of evidence-based instructional practices.
• Engagement in a continuous improvement process of teaching and learning that is evidenced and informed by meaningful assessment.
• A plan to stimulate departmental dialogue around teaching.
Examples of past projects funded by INFUSE include:
- Efforts in the Department of Mathematics to design and assess transition courses with an intentional focus on student diversity in prior knowledge and experiences in order to improve student success.
- Explorations in the Department of Early and Special Education to develop a sustainable model for integrating undergraduate research into teacher education courses.
- A three-day retreat for the Global Studies program to engage in a collaborative review and curriculum redesign for core courses to address structural barriers to student success.
Proposals are due no later than Monday, March 29. For more information and to apply please see the INFUSE informational page on the CTL website.