Contextualizing Duke’s Centennial: Exploring the Past to Shape Our Vision for the Future
This call is for faculty seeking support to design a project-based course, or course module, that engages students in the exploration of an issue related to Duke’s past, present or future during Duke's Centennial. (Learn more about Duke's Centennial and related research questions here. Interested in proposing a year-long project team related to the Centennial? Check out our proposal guidelines for year-long project teams.)
Deadline: Proposals must be submitted via the online submission form by April 3, 2023 at 5:00 p.m.
Key Requirements and Eligibility
- The proposed course or module must relate to the centennial and must include collaborative projects as a central element of the course.
- Proposals may relate to a new course or the re-design of an existing course. Courses can be designed at any level (undergraduate, undergraduate/graduate, or graduate/professional).
- Faculty of any level and rank and from any Duke school may apply.
- The course should be offered during the 2023-24 or 2024-25 academic year.
- Faculty should have support from their unit for offering the course (assuming sufficient enrollment).
What Are Collaborative Project Courses?
Collaborative Project Courses foster student learning through team-based research projects that extend across an entire semester. Such courses often move beyond the classroom, giving students a chance to bring their academic knowledge and skills to bear on complex problems under the mentorship of faculty, graduate students and, in some cases, community members.
Collaborative Project Courses help students grasp the relevance of their work while also demanding rigorous study and original research, often alongside engagement with a community of practice. When done well, this approach creates a dynamic learning environment and inspires students to take greater ownership of the learning process. For a more in-depth summary of Collaborative Project Courses, and the unique pedagogical questions they pose, visit our Collaborative Project Courses: Course Design Resource Center.
Funding
Recognizing the time that it takes to design project-based courses, faculty whose proposals are accepted will receive $5,000 to be used at the faculty member’s discretion (e.g., for summer salary to design the course, funding to pay a doctoral student for assistance in course design, discretionary research funds, funds to support course activities or a TA, travel funding to explore best practice models or seek professional development). For co-taught courses, faculty will receive $10,000 to be allocated as they like.
Faculty may also request supplemental funding of $1,750 to cover 75 hours of a doctoral student’s time to support elements of the course design through the Bass Connections Collaborative Project Expeditions program. This is optional. Faculty would be responsible for identifying/recruiting a graduate student to work with them.
Examples of Collaborative Project Courses
Collaborative Project Courses can be deployed in a range of ways depending on the focus and goals of a course. One example relative to the centennial is Cecilia Márquez’s Latinx Social Movements, a history course in which students designed an exhibit for Duke Libraries on the history of Latinx organizing and social experience at Duke. Other examples, not relevant to the content of the centennial, include:
- Applied Collaborative Research on Early Childhood, in which students partner with an early childhood community organization to answer real-world questions through research and policy analysis
- Engineering Design & Communication, where first-year students gain hands-on engineering experience by working in teams to design, prototype and deliver solutions to meet community needs
- Social Science Research Lab: Evaluating Health Innovation, in which student teams develop a logic model and evaluation plan in partnership with the Duke Institute for Health Innovation
- Using Human-Centered Design to Improve the Citizen Experience, in which teams partner with government and nonprofit organizations to improve services using the principles of human-centered design
Proposal Process
Proposals should be submitted by April 3, 2023 at 5 p.m. via this online form. You may draft your application directly within the online form and save and return to your work. The application will ask you to provide a brief description of the course or module you intend to design and upload a statement of support from your unit.
Faculty who are co-teaching a course (or faculty who teach different sections of a core course) can submit one application with one letter of support.
The strongest applications will be those in which: 1) the proposed course engages substantively with Duke’s past, present and/or future, and 2) there is a clear vision for how collaborative, project-based learning will support the learning objectives of the course.
Decisions will be announced in late April 2023.
For More Information
- See resources for faculty in our Collaborative Project Courses: Course Design Resource Center
- Learn more about the Collaborative Project Expeditions program
- See examples of Collaborative Project Courses
For questions or to discuss course ideas, contact:
Laura Howes, Director, Bass Connections
laura.howes@duke.edu
(919) 684-9021