2-7-96
Contacts:
John Kozak, Provost's Office, (515) 294-0070
John Anderson, University Relations, (515) 294-6136
FACULTY FELLOWSHIPS TO COME FROM MILLER ESTATE
AMES, Iowa -- Up to $250,000 will be put into programs aimed at improving undergraduate teaching at Iowa State University during the next fiscal year, ISU President Martin C. Jischke announced Feb. 7.
The funds will come from earnings from an estimated $27 million estate bequeathed in part to Iowa State. The bequest came from F. Wendell Miller, an attorney and farm manager who died in 1995 at the age of 97. His will stipulated that the bulk of his estate be used to create the Miller Endowment Trust, with income from the trust to be divided equally between Iowa State and the University of Iowa.
"Iowa State has never before received or been the beneficiary of a gift as large as the Wendell Miller estate," Jischke said.
Part of the earnings from the Miller endowment will be used to create Miller Faculty Development Fellowships, Jischke added. The fellowships, ranging from $1,000 to $25,000, will be used to advance the university's strategic plan. Faculty receiving these funds will be designated Miller Faculty Fellows during the academic year of their awards.
The focus during the first year of the program will be on strengthening undergraduate teaching, which, in turn, is expected to enhance university retention and recruitment efforts, Jischke said. Fellowships will be awarded to tenured and tenure-track faculty to develop new courses that will enrich the undergraduate experience or new approaches to teaching existing undergraduate courses.
Particular emphasis will be placed on efforts to strengthen lower level (100- and 200-level) courses, primarily for freshmen and sophomores. Emphasis also will be placed on courses that meet the university's diversity requirement (courses that address human diversity within society or provide a foreign culture context for analysis and interpretation of world conditions).
Fellowship awards may be used to fund faculty release time, travel expenses, new equipment and software, graduate assistants and special assistance from academic support units, such as the library, media resource center or computation center.
Proposals will be peer-reviewed by the ISU Center for Teaching Excellence Executive Board, which will make recommendations for funding to the provost. Awards will be announced by April 15.
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Diana Pounds (dpounds@iastate.edu) University Relations |
Copyright © 1996 Iowa State University All rights reserved |
URL: http://www.iastate.edu/ general/releases/miller.html Revised 2/8/96 |