Colonial Academic Alliance

Creating intercollegiate connections to challenge the status quo.

CAA Institutions’ Response to Coronavirus Pandemic

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To address the challenges associated with the spread of COVID-19, Alliance member institutions are actively providing information and resources for students, faculty, staff, parents, and other stakeholders.

RESOURCES FOR ALLIANCE FACULTY, STAFF, AND STUDENTS

  • Drexel’s Center for the Advancement of STEM Teaching and Learning Excellence (CASTLE) has curated and compiled a comprehensive set of resource pages for Learning Remotely, Teaching Remotely, and Pedagogical Resources to assist faculty and students with the transition to online learning.
  • UNCW’s Distance Education and eLearning (DEeL) and the Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE) created the Keep Teaching site to provide guidelines and resources for faculty who must continue teaching from a distance during temporary closures.
  • The College of Charleston’s *free* 2020 TLTCon (Teaching, Learning, & Technology Conference), scheduled to be held on May 14-15, is designed to bring together expertise from faculty and staff across multiple institutions, spotlight teaching excellence, and provide a space for idea sharing and networking.

CAMPUS UPDATES

The links below provide access to the most recent updates from each institution:

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IN/CO Round 2 | Funding Awards Announced

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The Colonial Academic Alliance is pleased to announce five newly-funded IN/CO Grant awards. A total of $174,000 will support the following initiatives:

Outcomes of Entrepreneurial Education: Perceptions of Career Readiness | $40,000
Elon University, Towson University, College of William & Mary      

  • Evaluate post-graduation employment outcomes, including rates of entrepreneurship or innovative placements, of recent alumni of entrepreneurship curricular programs.
  • Evaluate how entrepreneurship graduates are perceived by employers in comparison to other recent graduates related to career readiness competencies.
  • Identify and disseminate best practices to build career readiness competencies within entrepreneurship curricular programs.

CAA Debate for Civic Learning | $40,000
James Madison University, College of Charleston, Northeastern University, Towson University, University of North Carolina Wilmington, College of William & Mary

  • Implement and assess debate-based pedagogy for civic learning in 24-36 courses across six CAA institutions, developing debate-based assignments, courses, and assessments for integrating civic learning in courses and programs.
  • Evaluate the impact of debate-based learning on learning outcomes like communication, critical thinking, civic learning, empathy, and research skills.
  • Refine debate-based pedagogical model using assessment data, disseminating best practices among CAA institutions.  

Ethical Reasoning in STEM Through Multi-Disciplinary Collaborative Teaching | $40,000
James Madison University, Drexel University

  • Pilot, develop, and assess several variations of multi-disciplinary collaborative teaching for sociotechnical integration as an approach to ethical reasoning in STEM curricula.
  • Assess opportunities, challenges, and best practices for integrated courses across institutional settings.
  • Refine ethics in STEM pedagogical model using assessment data, disseminating best practices among CAA institutions.

Using Historical Collections for Civic Engagement and Innovative Teaching & Learning | $40,000
Drexel University, University of Delaware, College of William & Mary

  • Use the City of Philadelphia’s Atwater Kent Collection to investigate and disseminate best practices for using objects for teaching, learning and civic engagement, with particular emphasis on public accessibility across populations and platforms.
  • Develop collaboratively produced toolkit for teaching and civic engagement with historic collections.

Toolkit for Assessment & Articulation of High-Impact Practices in Academic Libraries | $14,000
Elon University, Towson University, University of North Carolina Wilmington

  • Develop and disseminate an assessment toolkit of sample outcomes and assessment tools to effectively articulate and evaluate how libraries add value to student success.
  • Evaluate opportunities to connect the library and library learning to broader campus initiatives across the CAA.
  • Create an “entry point” for academic librarians seeking to lead, partner, and contribute to high-impact practices on campus.

Additional information about the newly-funded IN/CO Grant projects will be posted over the course of the Spring 2020 term. Please check back soon for updates!

To learn more about the IN/CO Grant program, please visit https://www.caa-academics.org/in-co-grant-program/. More information on the IN/CO Grant selection process for round 2 funding is available at https://www.caa-academics.org/in-co-round-2-announced/.

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IN/CO Grant Program

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The Colonial Academic Alliance is turning to true innovators – faculty and staff at our member institutions – to generate powerful ideas that creatively address the challenges we face in higher education.

The Alliance will support and champion these ideas through the newly created Innovate/Collaborate (IN/CO) Grant Program, providing grants of $5,000—$20,000 per year (for two years) for initiatives that: address pressing policy challenges in higher education; fuel collaboration between institutions; enhance institutional excellence; and promote innovation in intellectual inquiry.

***IN/CO Short Form Applications are due on October 13, 2017 by 5:00PM. The application is available for download  under the “Application Instructions” section below.***

PRIORITY FUNDING AREAS

IN/CO Grants will support multi-institutional teams of faculty and staff in the exploration and development of creative approaches and best practices that positively impact student success, advance scholarship, and promote the dissemination of best practices in one of the following priority funding areas:

  • Innovative teaching & learning
  • High impact practices
  • Civic engagement
  • Entrepreneurial education
  • Student-athlete initiatives

FUNDING GUIDELINES

IN/CO Grants will fund actionable, scalable initiatives that are:

  • Designed to contribute lessons or best practices for the higher education community
  • Marketable for future academic publication or presentation at conferences
  • Attractive to future foundation or sponsor funding beyond the IN/CO Grant Program

REQUIRED INSTITUTIONAL MATCH

If selected for an IN/CO grant award, your institution must be willing to provide in-kind or monetary matching.

APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS

Interested faculty and staff at Alliance member institutions are invited to complete an IN/CO Short Form application (download using link below or click here: IN/CO Short Form Application), briefly introducing a topic, idea, or challenge that they wish to explore in collaboration with other member institutions. Please clearly complete each field of the application, succinctly making a case for funding.

***IN/CO Short Form Applications are due on October 13, 2017 by 5:00PM.*** 
Please email completed form (and any relevant attachments) to Alliance Executive Director Lindsey Interlante via email at li@caa-academics.org. Use the subject “IN/CO Short Form Application.” 

SELECTION PROCESS

Alliance staff will vet proposals for compliance with the guidelines outlined in the IN/CO Short Form application. Complaint proposals will be presented to the Executive Committee of the Provosts’ Council, who will select a slate of finalists. Finalists will work with Alliance staff to identify potential partners at other Alliance institutions, respond to any questions or concerns put forth by the Executive Committee, develop a grant budget, and complete a finalized project plan for approval.

***The Provosts’ Council will reach a final decision on which applicants to fund by November 22, 2017. All proposals will receive a response from Alliance staff by December 1, 2017.***

CONNECTING INSTITUTIONAL PARTNERS

IN/CO Grants are intended to fund teams of faculty and staff from two or more Alliance member institutions. Given the diversity and geographic breadth of the Alliance, faculty and staff are not expected to forge these partnerships on their own. Executive Director Lindsey Interlante will work with finalists to identify appropriate institutional partners for their proposed initiative. Applicants are welcome to suggest possible institutional partners, but selection as a finalist does not guarantee that you will work with your suggested partner institution.

COMPATIBILITY WITH ALLIANCE MISSION

Projects selected for an IN/CO Grant award will be compatible with our mission:

The Colonial Academic Alliance facilitates collaboration and communication across member institutions, engaging faculty, staff, and students in meaningful initiatives that challenge the status quo, enrich the academic environment, and advance student success.

EVALUATION CRITERIA

IN/CO Grants provide teams with the opportunity to engage in exploratory research and scholarship, so applications do not need to reflect every specific detail of your intended project. Successful applications will demonstrate that:

  • Your intended initiative is strongly aligned with one or more Alliance priority areas;
  • Your intended initiative will directly address a challenging issue in higher education;
  • Your team has the capacity, qualifications, and institutional support to successfully implement your intended project;
  • Your team has an intentional and feasible plan to use the grant funds during the two-year award period;
  • If selected for an IN/CO grant award, your institution must be willing to provide in-kind or monetary matching.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AND QUESTIONS

Applicants wishing to receive additional information on IN/CO Grants or ask questions should contact Alliance Executive Director Lindsey Interlante at li@caa-academics.org.

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2017 Learning Summit @ JMU

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The Alliance’s annual Pedagogy/Learning Summit will be hosted by James Madison University on September 7-8th, 2017. The Summit brings together faculty and staff from its member institutions to explore innovative teaching and learning strategies.

This year’s theme is Wicked Learning: Evidencing Impact to a Skeptical World. Today’s faculty and educational developers face a challenging environment amid rising costs, waning enrollments, and increasing public uncertainty about the value of higher education. Further, skeptics and scholars question if students actually learn, casting doubt on the most fundamental indicator of higher education quality. This year’s summit will feature speakers, workshops, and roundtables that will help us think through these questions, devising local solutions nested in our institutional culture:

  • What high-impact interventions and assessments foster deep learning in our students?
  • How do we demonstrate learning gains not just in individual courses, but also across curricula and academic programs?
  • How can curricula be thread together in a way that advances both student learning and faculty engagement?
  • How can educational developers, assessment experts, and faculty leaders work together to create systems and organizational changes at their institutions?
REGISTRATION LINK

If button (above) does not work, please access registration page using the following link:
http://events.constantcontact.com/register/event?llr=t6id4iyab&oeidk=a07eeex7e2s0e03eb0

AUDIENCE + LEARNING OUTCOMES

We encourage each campus to send a team of 3-6 individuals who represent educational development, institutional assessment, and general faculty. Together, teams will make progress toward:

  • Identifying and developing powerful partnerships among faculty, faculty developers, and assessment experts – all in an effort to mitigate the “wicked challenges” facing higher education;
  • Comparing and contrasting course-level assessment, program (curriculum)-level assessment, and learning improvement;
  • Discovering and analyzing several “best practices” in program-level learning improvement;
  • Building their own best practices and models.
KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Dr. Megan Rodgers Good is the Director of Academic Assessment at Auburn University, serving as a resource to academic programs on all phases of student learning outcomes assessment (e.g., outcome creation, instrument development, data collection strategies). Megan earned her PhD in Assessment and Measurement from James Madison University. Her doctoral work focused on connecting assessment with teaching and learning strategies to evidence student learning growth at a programmatic level.

TENTATIVE AGENDA

SESSION DESCRIPTIONS

A detailed schedule and session descriptions are forthcoming — please check back soon for more information!

LODGING 

A room block is available at the Fairfield Inn & Suites in Harrisonburg for $91/night. To book your room, please use the following link:
Book your group rate for CAA Learning Summit

CONTACT / MORE INFORMATION

If you have questions, concerns, or wish to learn more about the Summit, please feel free to reach out to Lindsey Interlante, Executive Director of the Colonial Academic Alliance. Lindsey can be reached via email at li@caa-academics.org or via phone at (336) 278-6646.

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Celebrating Women Entrepreneurs Summit

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CWE Logo 1Women own 36% of all businesses yet they make up over 50% of the population.

– 2012 U.S. Census

Female entrepreneurs start companies with 50% less capital than male entrepreneurs.

– National Women’s Business Council

 

To foster innovation and economic expansion for women entrepreneurs, join us at the College of Charleston for the Celebrating Women Entrepreneurs Summit on March 18! Participants will learn how other dynamic female entrepreneurs have secured funding, found mentors and cultivated the elements needed to launch and grow their businesses. The program is sponsored by Think Ideally and will showcase dynamic female entrepreneurs and a live pitch competition.

[Read more…]

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