Individual Fellow Initiatives
Watering Two Plants With One Hose: Protocolization of Progress to Promote Practical Resource Sharing
Cohort: 2020
Fellow: Nico Osier
When I first became faculty at UT Austin, I inherited an existing course; for a variety of reasons, I felt the need to overhaul all of the lectures. This process, however, proved time-consuming and I found myself unable to complete all of the lectures as originally planned prior to the start of the semester. Moreover, even the lectures that I did overhaul continued to have flaws and I was growing increasingly frustrated with the continued inadequacy of my lessons, despite devoting considerable time and energy to them. This was disheartening and my other responsibilities (e.g.
Towards an Anti-Racist Climate in Nursing
Cohort: 2019
Fellow: Danica Sumpter
(Project completed 2021) Systems of oppression gain their power from silence. Faculty in the School of Nursing and across the country are not always comfortable engaging in conversations about race and racism, but these discussions are necessary in order to address the disproportionately poor health outcomes experienced by BIPOC. In response to student and faculty concerns, this project seeks to move our school towards an antiracist climate by targeting multiple layers.
Increasing Geoscience Diversity Through Undergraduate Mentoring in Dual-Enrollment High School Introductory Earth Science Courses
Cohort: 2019
Fellow: Joel Johnson
(Project completed 2021) Geosciences are one of the least diverse STEM fields in terms of participation by people from underrepresented minority groups. The problem addressed by my project is that Hispanic students in both high school and college not only have relatively little exposure to geoscience knowledge, but also have little exposure to geoscience career paths/opportunities, relatively few role models from similar backgrounds, and may feel like outsiders in geoscience departments at the university level.
Freshman Opportunities for Research in the Geosciences (FORGe)
Cohort: 2017
Fellow: Mary Poteet
I am working on a unique partnership between Austin Community College (ACC) and UT Austin to develop collaborative peer learning communities (PLCs) in the Geosciences with mixed cohorts of two-year college (2YC) and four-year college (4YC) students.