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Curriculum Development Grant Application and Grant Application Chair's Form
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Curriculum Development Grant Application / Grant Application Chair's Form

FIRST-YEAR SEMINAR PROGRAM (FYSP)
FACULTY CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT GRANT
FOR FALL SEMINARS

Please submit as Word files via electronic enclosures or in hard copy form to Mary Garvin, FYSP Acting Director. Applications for grants are due November 20, 2007/8.

Printable Version (word doc.)
 
Name(s):

Department(s) or Program(s):

Are you applying for a grant? If so, what type of course are you proposing?

1) Course Revision
2) New Course
3) Other (e.g., New Team-Taught Course or Course with Winter Term component)

The Seminar will be offered first in which year and semester?______ (To be eligible for a grant, the FYS must be taught in the fall.)

Proposed Course Title:   Please note that these courses are designed for incoming students who may or may not be familiar with the discourse/jargon of your field. (Course number will be provided by FYSP and not your department/program)
   
 

Credit: All FYSs are 4 credits. In addition, you should select one of the three following options. (Information for Writing Proficiency or Quantitative Proficiency can be found at the FYSP webpage: http://www.oberlin.edu/fysfac/resources/html.)

WRi, QP-Full, or WR + QP-Half? (Choose one of the three options.)
   

Some things to keep in mind:

Those who recieve grants commit to teaching the FYS at least 3 times over a 5-year period of active service.

Seminars meet more than once a week.

Seminars are needed in the fall. Spring seminars are much less desirable.

Faculty members new to the FYS are required to attend a workship in late May/early June.

The goals of the FYSP:

  1. To introduce liberal arts learning
    • Education goals of liberal arts learning
    • Ethos/values that sustain a liberal ats community of learning
  2. To nurture essential academic skills
    • Thinking skills
    • Discussion skills
    • Writing skills or quantitative skills
    • Other skills (as appropriate the specific course)
      • Empirical and field-based research skills
      • Information literacy skills

 

On separate pages, please respond to the following prompts.

1. Please provide a 150 to 200-word description of the seminar for the FYSP Catalog. The First-Year Seminar Program produces its own course catalog to be mailed to entering first-year students (also on-line at http://www.oberlin.edu/fys/). Students will have the opportunity to pre-enroll in a FYSP course during the summer, but they may not have yet experienced Oberlin's intellectual milieu and will not have the advantage of working with a faculty advisor to help interpret course descriptions. We hope that reading about the intellectually exciting and diverse FYSP course offerings will get incoming students thinking about their learning at Oberlin College. The catalog is also used by the Offices of Admissions and College Relations. For your FYSP catalog course description, we need snappy prose that is jargon-free and "user friendly" and aimed at inciting the curiosity of brright high school seniors and their parents. We recommend that you include within your description the main questions that you will be pursuing in class and the broader intellectual significance of the seminar.

 
2. Please provide a 70-word course description for the regular Oberlin College course catalog, keeping the above in mind.
 

3. Please provide a more detailed discussion of the proposed seminar for the FYSP committee (600 words would be nice.) This statement should include a discussion of how the course meets the goals of the program and how the course provides an introduction to liberal arts learning. Please also note possible readings and assignments that you might give.

  • The FYSP values frequent and recursive writing assignments (unless the course QP-full); how will you incorporate writting into the course?
  • While these things are not required, does your proposed course incorporate information literacy, a community service activity, and/or community-based research? If so, how?
  • If you are proposing to revise a course for the Program, explain the nature and extent of the revisioins ou are planning. Please submit the syllabus of the course you intend to revise.
 
4. Please enclose a one to two-page C.V. with your application and a letter from your department/program chair addressing the department/program's assessment of your proposed course and the acceptabiliy of your proosed scheduling of the course outlined above. The FYSP Grant Chair's Form can be found at http://www.oberlin.edu/fysfac/ChairApplication.html
 


 

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Updated 10/12/07 by Robert Chester