Development Awards

The Gertrude F. Bristol Faculty Fellowship provides funds for pedagogical, scholarly, and creative activities during periodic (sabbatical) leaves. Eligibility is limited to tenured faculty members with approved periodic leaves. Faculty members supported by this fund shall be known as "Gertrude F. Bristol Fellows."  Proposals of no more than 1 to 2 pages describing your proposed project and its relationship to your teaching and professional growth should be submitted to your Associate Dean of Faculty and be accompanied by a budget. Stipends as well as funds to support the project are available. Requests should be submitted to your Associate Dean of Faculty by December 1 of the academic year preceding your leave.

The Class of 1963 Faculty Fellowship is intended to provide “members of the faculty with inspiration and incentive to become better teachers by developing additional areas of expertise during the summer months.” Eligibility is limited to tenured faculty members and to untenured faculty members in tenure-track appointments. Proposals of no more than 1 to 2 pages (the ADOF will be in contact if they have any questions for clarification) describing your proposed project and its relationship to your teaching and professional growth should be submitted online and accompanied by a budget and an endorsement from the department chair.  Deadline for proposals is March 31.

The Class of 1966 Career Development Award provides funds for use during the summer “to enhance the quality of undergraduate teaching at Hamilton.” Eligibility is limited to untenured faculty members holding tenure-track appointments.  The successful proposal will be one that seeks to create an opportunity to develop new ideas and creative pedagogical approaches that might lead to new vitality in the classroom, studio, or laboratory.

Proposals that center on faculty-student collaboration, and in particular on ways to actively involve students in the teaching-learning process, are especially welcome. Proposals of no more than 1 to 2 pages (the ADOF will be in contact if they have any questions for clarification) describing your proposed project and its relationship to your teaching and professional growth should be submitted online and be accompanied by a budget and an endorsement from the department chair. Deadline for proposals is March 31.

The Dean’s Pedagogical Development Award is intended to provide members of the faculty with inspiration and incentive to become better teachers by developing additional areas of expertise during the summer months. Eligibility is limited to teachers holding faculty positions (Professors of Instruction at any rank, Visiting Assistant Professor, Visiting Instructor, Lecturer, Senior Lecturer) who anticipate returning to Hamilton for the next academic year. Tenure-track faculty should apply for the Class of 1966 Career Development Award. Deadline for proposals is March 31.

The Dean of Faculty invites faculty to submit proposals for Faculty Teacher-Scholar Awards supporting course and pedagogical development; research and creative work; and international and domestic research travel. Details of specific awards are described below.  Faculty at all ranks are eligible to apply but must hold an appointment of half-time or greater. A faculty member can apply to one or multiple awards if applicable. Collaborative projects involving faculty and/or students will be considered. Grants are competitive and will be awarded based on the criteria specifically mentioned under each endowment and the following:

• For research awards, articulation of how the project will contribute toward a) the beginning of a new scholarly project, b) advancing a current project to make it more competitive for external funding, or c) the completion of a project for dissemination.
• For pedagogical awards, connection to one or more of the eight educational goals of the College or alignment of the proposal with one or more course designation (WI, SSIH, QSR, SI, EL, or FYC).

The Dean’s office is pleased to introduce the Pedagogy-in-Practice Program beginning Spring 2024. The intent of this program is to encourage and support course development and pedagogical innovation around our curricular requirements and priorities (WI, QSR, SSIH, SI, EL, FYC).  We invite faculty who share common pedagogical interests to form working groups of 4-6 members and propose a semester-long program for sharing strategies for enhancing innovative approaches to teaching. Ideally, the working groups will foster a spirit of collaboration and collegiality among faculty members that lasts beyond the funding period. The courses proposed need not be in the same discipline or topic, but the work within a team should target a particular curricular theme. The Dean of the Faculty will fund up to five working groups to participate in this program. 

Examples of potential topics:

• Designing courses around one of our specially designated course types identified on the CAP website: Writing Intensive, Quantitative and Symbolic Reasoning, Speaking Intensive, Experiential Learning, First Year Course, or Social and Structural Institutional Hierarchies
• Incorporating digital technology into courses
• Incorporating inclusive pedagogical practices into the curriculum/classroom
• Integrating team-based learning strategies into courses
• Developing active learning activities for the classroom
• Developing more inclusive STEM courses
• Developing AI-friendly assignments/courses

The Special Collections Faculty Fellowship is designed to enable faculty to explore the Burke Library’s Special Collections and Archives with the goal of integrating the use of Special Collections materials into one or more of their courses. Eligibility is limited to tenured or tenure-track faculty members.

The Special Collections and Archives are particularly strong in the following subject areas: Hamilton College history, Ezra Pound, American Communal Societies, Radicalism, the Lesser Antilles Islands, Banjo, Utica imprints, interviews with jazz musicians and general rare books. Proposals should elaborate on the development of projects that would result in the classroom use of these materials. Proposals of no more than 1 to 2 pages describing your proposed project and its relationship to your teaching and professional growth should be submitted online and accompanied by a budget and an endorsement from the department chair. Deadline for proposals is March 31. 

The Theory and Practice of Social Change Grants, sponsored by the Dean of Faculty and the Levitt Center, support faculty who wish to incorporate the theory and practice of social change into a new or existing course, using the lens of engaged scholarship, transformational leadership, and/or social innovation. These grants aim to support Hamilton’s educational goals of a curriculum that fosters ethical, informed, and engaged citizenship, as well as creativity.

All faculty members teaching at least 3/5 time are eligible to apply. Grants for new courses will provide $2,500 for the development of a course, plus up to $1,500 for materials and travel expenses. An additional stipend of $1000 will be provided after the course has been taught twice. Grants for existing courses provide a one-time $750 stipend for faculty who wish to add a leadership and social innovation component to an existing course. Applications should be submitted online and any questions may be directed to levitt@hamilton.edu. Discontinued until further notice.

The Dean’s office is pleased to announce a Works-in-Progress Program. The intent of this program is to encourage the discussion of works in progress, as well as sharing strategies for advancing scholarly and creative work. Ideally, participation in a roundtable discussion will foster a spirit of collaboration and collegiality among faculty members that lasts beyond the funding period. Each semester, the Dean of the Faculty will fund up to twelve faculty members to participate in this program. 

Interested faculty are encouraged to form complementary groups of four, whose responsibilities will be to meet for discussion at least seven times during the semester and to organize a schedule of reciprocal exchanges of works in progress. These self-organized small group partnerships are meant to be informal and social, yet focused on exchanging ideas and gathering feedback about one’s scholarship or creative work.

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