On behalf of the President’s Office and thanks to the generosity of a Bryn Mawr donor, the Provost’s Office invites applications from pairs of faculty members interested in convening and leading a conversation among the faculty at the College in Academic Year 2024-2025 about how innovation is—and can—be taught in the undergraduate liberal arts. Central questions include:
- How do faculty in the liberal arts across disciplines understand innovation?
- Is innovation the best frame among others (i.e. entrepreneurship, social change, sustainability, etc.)?
- How are these ideas being taught across disciplines/fields?
- What role can graduate students play around innovation in a mostly undergraduate-focused institution?
- What are the most successful approaches for students?
Questions to consider for the application concern innovation as a concept/subject area as well as the pedagogy through which such ideas are taught. This is not, it should be emphasized, an invitation to think about how to use innovative pedagogy to teach core skills and concepts in disciplines/fields unless they intersect with innovation in some way. Nor is this a call for an innovative project related to existing faculty scholarship. Rather, we are looking for a broader approach that could guide thinking and creativity across the College. This call recognizes that there is no clear definition of innovation and invites wrestling with competing approaches.
One pair of faculty members will be selected to convene a small group of faculty members (applications to be in that small group will be forthcoming) as well as select staff members at the discretion of the faculty conveners. The faculty conveners will be asked to share the group’s learnings at the end of the academic year including a short report for all faculty that:
- Describes how innovation is being taught in other liberal arts contexts
- Pitches 3-5 ideas for how we could more fully integrate teaching about innovation across disciplines/fields at Bryn Mawr College
- Shares specific ideas about the physical spaces/buildings needed to house/showcase the 3-5 ideas pitched.
The faculty conveners will each receive $8,000 for their work. The faculty conveners will also have:
- Up to $10,000 to support five faculty participants they select through an application process. Faculty participating in the small group will receive $2000 for their participation through the academic year.
- Up to $5000 to support undergraduate or graduate research assistants
- Up to $5000 to support select staff for consultation
- Up to $10,000 for exploration and programming including field trips to other schools, materials, expert consultation, gatherings such as design-thinking workshops with colleagues, etc.
- Timeline for Teaching on Innovation in the Liberal Arts
- September 16, call for faculty conveners opens. Please complete the following form: https://brynmawr.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_cRWyKZVapbJww50
- October 1, Applications for faculty conveners are due.
- October 8, Faculty conveners announced, and applications for faculty participants open
- October 25, Applications for faculty participants due
- November 1, Faculty convenors select and notify faculty participants
- January 15, Update due to Provost’s Office (to share with the donor making this possible)
- May 1, 2025, Short report as described above due to the Provost’s Office and shared with the full faculty at the final faculty meeting of Spring 2025. It will also be shared with the donor to explore possible additional funding.
The faculty conveners will be selected by the President, Provost, Dean of the GSSWSR and Dean of Graduate Studies. The faculty conveners will select the faculty participants.