Individual Fellow Initiatives
Strengthening the Sustainability Studies Degree
Cohort: 2023
Fellow: Jules Elkins
Sustainability Studies graduated its first sizeable cohort in 2022, and the program has yet to undergo a
comprehensive review. Conversations with students revealed their desire for better access to the professional
Teaching Law and Religion
Cohort: 2023
Fellow: Samy Ayoub
The aim of my proposed project is then the integration of the seemingly disparate studies of law and
religion. The study of both is an important branch of comparative law and global legal history that I aim
Teaching Engineering through Murder Mysteries and Personalized AI Tutor
Cohort: 2023
Fellow: Krishna Kumar
CE 357: Introduction to Geotechnical Engineering is a third year required undergraduate course that has traditionally been a challenging course for students due to its abstract nature. The average course rating for CE 357 is 3.8 in the last twenty years. I have successfully transformed the lecture modules to achieve a significant increase in interest and students’ performance in the course. Although preliminary work looks promising, I want to scientifically evaluate the effectiveness of the course and publish the findings.
Offering Real-World Opportunities for Students Enrolled in Statistics and Data Science Undergraduate Research
Cohort: 2023
Fellow: Layla Guyot
There is a need for offering data analysis support to our local communities. While many undergraduates
enrolled in our courses have expressed interest in conducting data analysis research projects, our department
doesn’t currently have a systematic way to offer these types of experiences. Thus, the primary goal of this
community-based service project is to provide both experiential learning and research opportunities for
undergraduates while supporting the broader Austin-area. Specifically, this project will coordinate with local
The “Social/Wellness Module:” Providing Space for Wellbeing and Social Learning for Incoming UT Students
Cohort: 2022
Fellow: Marina Alexandrova
My project addresses the lack of built-in social/wellness-oriented interactions in introductory courses for
Austin FC U: An Immersive Course Co-Development Between Austin FC and UT-Austin Sport Management
Cohort: 2022
Fellow: Matt Bowers
As the campus community enters a new post-pandemic era, it is clear that one of the most urgent needs
following 2+ years of remote and hybrid learning is to create poignant, relevant contexts for pursuing
immersive experiential learning. As universities reckon with the challenge of continuing to evolve their value
propositions to meet student demand for more industry-relevant experiences, there is an opportunity to
innovate how we design and deliver unique pedagogical experiences that connect more deeply with their
Cola Interdisciplinary Program Instructors' Community of Practice
Cohort: 2022
Fellow: Elon Lang
There are two main issues that this project hopes to address. The first is the student and instructor malaise that
has been noticed by educators and administrators across our whole campus since the return to face-to-face
Academic Culture in McCombs School of Business
Cohort: 2022
Fellow: Kristie J Loescher
MSB does not have a standardized way to define or measure rigor in the classroom beyond using class GPAs as a proxy measure. This focus on lower GPA = higher rigor has had the unintended consequence of creating a
culture of acceptance for low student performance, which disproportionately falls on underrepresented
minorties and first-generation students. This project focuses on standardizing the definition and measurement of rigor in the classroom in a manner that supports both faculty development/promotion and student diversity/inclusion.
Enhancing Assessment Practices in Large Physics Courses
Cohort: 2022
Fellow: Jonathan Perry
There exists a gap between instruction and assessment in large introductory physics courses. Recent
projects supported by the PTFs and the Texas Mindset Initiative have focused on classroom instruction and
Imagery for Critical Thinking: A Pedagogical Approach for Engineering and Science Students
Cohort: 2022
Fellow: Navid Saleh
Most science and engineering courses are founded on abstract mathematical and/or analytical theories/concepts. Though the abstract concepts are essential to describe underlying scientific and engineering principles, the teaching pedagogy largely misses out on the utilization of imagery. We expect our students to master the subject we teach, but rarely do we provide them with the necessary tools to synthesize their acquired knowledge. Innovation gets stifled in the maze of abstract theories.
Centralization of UT Resources
Cohort: 2022
Fellow: Amy Kristin Sanders
Resources related to accessibility at UT-Austin are not centralized in a single location that makes them easy for
students, staff and faculty to find them. As a result, UT community members cannot efficiently access the
resources they need because numerous different departments and units are responsible for them. Thus,
Longhorn Mindfulness Project
Cohort: 2022
Fellow: Tolga Ozyurtcu
This project focuses on mental health on campus. Specifically, the mental health and self-regulation challenges that mindfulness practices have been empirically shown to address: anxiety, depression, focus, and procrastination. There is strong empirical support for these benefits emerging around the 8-week mark of regular practice (10-15 minutes per day), which is feasible in the confines of the semester calendar.
Internship in the Media Industries
Cohort: 2021
Fellow: Wenhong Chen
Internships have increasingly become a critical step in the college-to-career transition in the media industries and beyond.
Digital Research Apprenticeship: Projects For Intersectional Justice
Cohort: 2021
Fellow: Tanya Clement
Research and scholarship in Digital Humanities applies technology to humanities questions and subjects technology to humanistic interrogation. DH pedagogy is difficult to develop because DH is inherently collaborative and interdisciplinary, crossing the humanities, archaeology, arts and architecture, computer science, film and media studies, information studies, geography, and the social sciences.
The Compassion Project
Cohort: 2021
Fellow: Natalie Czimskey
In a Gallup poll of UT alumni (2014), only 15-17% of UT alumni strongly believed that faculty cared about them as a person. The Gallup report (2014) relayed information on various measures of alumni well-being. Gallup found that college experience was more likely to correlate to alumni well-being than the type of university attended. Having a professor who they believed cared about them as a person was the number one driving factor in alumni well-being. This means there is long-term impact to the short-term care of our students.
Sync-Up - Teach-Up - Texas Teach-Up on Demand
Cohort: 2021
Fellow: Julie Schell
Educators need increased opportunities to participate in Texas Teach-Up in order to benefit from modeling teaching at UT Austin. This project will explore two specific elements of this problem. Currently you can only participate during officially scheduled time/dates, you cannot participate on-demand. This limits access to only those who can make it, or are a part of the university, during the on-schedule times and dates. Additionally, as an on-schedule event, seats have closing limits. Some people who want to participate may not be able to do so because the session is full.
Making New Scientists: Supporting the Training of Incoming Science Majors
Cohort: 2021
Fellow: Ruth Shear
Traditional science degree programs concentrate primarily on content and are not known for preparing their graduates with other skills needed for scientific careers.
Critical Race Theory in The Steve Hicks School of Social Work
Cohort: 2021
Fellow: Sarah Sloan
(Project completed 2023) The challenge this project addresses is to enhance our current curriculum at the Steve Hicks School of Social Work (SHSSW) and provide some of the tools necessary to meet our mandates as a profession. To give some context, the discipline of Social Work is centered in principles from the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) Code of Ethics which includes a strong and clear commitment to working toward social justice and to dismantle systemic barriers that keep all people from liberation and wellness.
Peer Mentor Leadership Project
Cohort: 2021
Fellow: Gwendolyn Stovall
UT CNS Freshman Research Initiative (FRI) peer mentors are a critical component of FRI success! FRI peer mentors, many serving as student teachers, guide undergraduate students in scientific research activities. For many, that includes leading meetings, providing student feedback, creatively solving problems and helping students connect the dots, honing interpersonal social skills, effectively communicating, and more – all 21st Century skills (Trilling and Fadel, 2009).
Developing Experiential Learning in Organizations
Cohort: 2021
Fellow: Amy Nathan Wright
While there are a few internship courses offered by the College of Liberal Arts, and a handful of internship classes offered in individual programs and departments, most of these are web-based courses, and none seem to offer other organizational experiences, such as service or leadership experiences.
Podcasting as Experiential Learning in Classics
Cohort: 2020
Fellow: Deborah Beck
Students in pre-modern disciplines face greater challenges in finding productive and engaging avenues for Experiential Learning than students in fields whose connections to current events are more self-evident. Podcasting offers students of ancient Greece and Rome a way to connect with people outside their classrooms, both other students and interested members of the general public. It also requires them to hone their oral presentation skills and to think about how to present the same idea to different audiences, both of which are fundamental to critical thinking.
Pharmacy Practice Lab Redesign
Cohort: 2020
Fellow: Ashley Castleberry
The College of Pharmacy is embarking on one of the biggest curricular revisions in the past decade by creating a Pharmacy Practice Lab sequence spanning all six semesters of our didactic program. The course series will combine content from seven existing courses in order to decrease redundancy and duplication to create increased alignment and reinforcement. Rather than students learning content within “the silo” of a single course, students will be required to retain and apply their knowledge and skills throughout the entire curriculum.
Mentored Research Learning: An Evaluation
Cohort: 2020
Fellow: Michael Findley
Mentored research defies the traditional higher education approach, which separates research and teaching into distinct activities. Instead, mentored research fully integrates faculty research activities and student learning. In this approach, researchers do not simply carry out their research in isolation with a paid set of PhD-level research assistants. Further, students do not simply learn from in-class lectures or more traditional out-of-classroom experiences, such as study abroad.
Improving Scientific Literacy and Climate Change Understanding for all UT Students
Cohort: 2020
Fellow: Steven Finkelstein
In CNS we teach ~6500 non-science majors in our introductory classes each year (>2000 in Astronomy alone). These are the last science courses these students take, which presents us with an opportunity to make a lasting impression. I propose to lead a Faculty Learning Community (FLC) to design module focused on scientific literacy and the science behind climate change. This module will be based on active learning, making use of the abundance of research that shows students retain information better by doing rather than listening.
Being Human in Physics
Cohort: 2020
Fellow: Vernita Gordon
(Project completed 2023) At UT Austin, undergraduate women are about twice as likely to leave the physics major then are undergraduate men. This does not arise primarily from academic difficulties–women physics majors and men physics majors are dismissed (for academic reasons) or drop out at roughly the same rates. Rather, women are more likely to switch out of the physics major into other majors than are men.