COPLAC Receives Teagle Foundation Grant for 2012-2014
Under the terms of the Teagle Foundation grant, eleven COPLAC campuses will design, implement and evaluate a
two-year pilot project for "high impact" faculty-mentored undergraduate research at the consortium level.
Specifically, the consortium seeks to enhance student learning by sharing disciplinary expertise across campuses
in a 'distance' mode and re-envision faculty work and encourage institutional efficiencies at predominantly undergraduate,
teaching institutions in the public sector.
The two-year project will explore:
- the extent to which there is student and faculty interest in this mode of education;
- the quality of the distance mentored experience compared to traditional face-to-face mentoring;
- the technical challenges and costs involved; and,
- the implications for faculty work.
In exploring these areas, the project will address three issues highlighted in the Teagle Foundation's Request for Proposals:
Academic collaboration, new ways of defining courses and faculty work, and innovative ways of delivering courses.
The positive impact of a successful pilot would be significant. With 26 campuses and over 4500 full-time faculty members consortium-wide,
a successful model for distance mentoring of undergraduate research has the potential to open up multiple areas of disciplinary expertise
that are not available to undergraduate researchers on small to medium-sized public liberal arts colleges.
Distance mentoring would leverage the strength of the consortium to offer students the range of faculty expertise more commonly associated with a
large Research-1 university.