Dear Members of the University of Delaware Faculty,

The Institute for Transforming Undergraduate Education is beginning its third year of activities on campus. Initially funded by an award from NSF's Institution-Wide Reform of Undergraduate Education program, ITUE provides an excellent opportunity to participate in course transformation and professional development activities this summer. In its first two years ITUE successfully brought together a diverse group of faculty members for examination of best practices in the classroom and discussion of a broad range of active learning strategies and uses of online resources for instruction. ITUE's efforts received national recognition recently with the Theodore M. Hesburgh Certificate of Excellence for faculty development to enhance undergraduate education.

Faculty members from all disciplines are invited to apply for Institute Fellowship this year. Individual applications are welcomed from those who teach undergraduate courses, for majors or non-majors, in any area. We also encourage applications from small teams of faculty members interested in development of interdisciplinary courses, especially those that would serve non-majors in meeting curricular requirements. In addition we plan to continue support of departmental teams working on curricular revision.

Faculty participating in the following programs are also invited to expand their efforts as ITUE Fellows:

the UD Problem-Based Learning project funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts,

the Stimulating Attitudes of Inquiry project funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, or

the Instructional Improvement Grant program of UD's Center for Teaching Effectiveness.

Institute activities provide hands-on experience in employing active learning strategies and technology in the classroom. Institute leaders work directly with Fellows in transforming existing courses or developing new ones. Each Institute Fellow also benefits from modest discretionary funding for support of course development or travel to teaching conferences.

We strongly encourage your participation in this important professional development opportunity. The attached application form provides more detail; additional information is also available at the ITUE website.

Sincerely,

John Cavanaugh
Vice Provost for Academic Programs and Planning

George Watson
Department of Physics and Astronomy

Comments, suggestions, or requests to ud-itue@udel.edu. "http://www.udel.edu/inst/invitation99.html" Last updated February 9, 1999. Copyright Univ. of Delaware, 1999.