Individual Fellow Initiatives
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.
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.
Race, Democracy, and Global Social Justice: How Studying Inequality and Vulnerability can Transform the World
Cohort: 2020
Fellow: Peniel Joseph
My initiative will achieve better learning outcomes in undergraduate and graduate students in History and the LBJ School by examining the intersection of history and contemporary policy, specifically its disparate impact on communities of color. Currently, departments, centers, faculty and students work independently of one another and lack valuable opportunities to collaborate. Genuine collaboration has evolved into a rare and difficult concept.
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.
Personal Financial Literacy Among UT Undergraduates
Cohort: 2020
Fellow: Heidi Toprac
Everyone needs to understand personal finance. Sadly, a large body of research indicates that most American adults fail basic tests of personal financial literacy. This project aims to determine whether there is sufficient personal financial literacy education on campus, and, if not, how that problem can be corrected.
Engineering Sentences: A Cross-Disciplinary Training Program
Cohort: 2020
Fellow: D'Arcy Randall
Although Cockrell School of Engineering (CSE) undergraduates take a required engineering writing class, which I teach for Chemical Engineering, they typically struggle with writing laboratory and long-form research reports. Helping CSE students to overcome this obstacle matters because writing technical reports prepares engineering students for the writing-intensive work of a professional engineer. Faculty teaching these classes would also benefit from higher quality student work.
C3 - Cross-Cohort Community
Cohort: 2019
Fellow: Katie Tackett
In my role as Undergraduate Advisor for the Department of Special Education, I oversee the five-semester Professional Development Sequence (PDS) for pre-service teachers majoring in special education. Students apply for this program in the fall of their sophomore year to begin in the spring with at least two courses taken as a cohort. Starting in the fall of their junior year, students take all their courses together as a cohort for their final four semesters. The cohorts create long-lasting professional and personal networks and –in my opinion –lead to stronger special education teachers.
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.
Data Analysis Tools: Integrating Computational and Statistical Techniques in the Environmental Engineering Curriculum
Cohort: 2018
Fellow: Paola Passalacqua
The goal of this project is to train the next generation of environmental engineers in computing and statistical techniques to solve big data problems. Current undergraduate students in the Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering have little to no exposure to computational and statistical methods for data analysis (e.g., big data collected from sensor networks). I proposed to integrate computational techniques in several courses throughout the Environmental Engineering Degree.
Global Learning Experiences
Cohort: 2018
Fellow: Stephanie Seidel Holmsten
Cross-cultural connections can deepen student engagement in the world around them and encourage their creativity about the course material. Such connections can happen in a UT classroom if the student body is particularly diverse, or if students participate in study abroad programs. Global connections are also being created through the Global Classrooms Initiative that connect UT students with students at universities from other countries through classroom activities, conversations and projects intentionally designed to encourage collaboration.
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.
Hispanic STEM Transfer Student Challenges and Resources
Cohort: 2016
Fellow: Maura Borrego
In 2012, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology documented the need to prepare an additional one million STEM professionals over the next ten years. To achieve this increase in STEM degree production, attention must be directed towards improving pathways for all students, specifically minority students who have been historically underserved. Research has indicated a need to focus on these underrepresented groups in STEM settings as enrollment patterns and access to higher education differs between groups of students.
From Putting in Time to Meaningful Civic Engagement: Transforming Service Learning in an Undergraduate Social Work Program
Cohort: 2016
Fellow: Vicki Packheiser
As a Provost’s Teaching Fellow, Vicki Packheiser is transforming Experiential Learning in Social Work’s foundational courses. This two-course sequence has long required 45 hours of service learning per course with a community agency. Social Work pre-majors contribute 10,000+ hours of service to the Austin community, serving as UT ambassadors while they gain experience that grounds their academics in future years. But the implementation has not lived up to the potential.
Empowering Undergraduate Entrepreneurship at UT: The Longhorn Entrepreneurship Ambassador Program
Cohort: 2016
Fellow: Luis Martins
Austin is a hotbed for innovation and entrepreneurship, and yet, until recently The University of Texas at Austin provided few structured undergraduate programs focused intentionally on entrepreneurship. That realization propelled PTF Luis Martins to propose the creation of a minor in entrepreneurship as his PTF project. The Entrepreneurship Minor, offered by the McCombs School of Business and open to all undergraduate students at UT Austin, is now a reality, and began accepting applications in February.
The Collaboratory: Interdisciplinary, Arts-based Pedagogy for Use in New and Emerging Learning Environments
Cohort: 2016
Fellow: Michelle Habeck
One of the top concerns from many employers is that college graduates lack the “soft skills” (collaboration, team-based skills)and professionalism they require. Collaboratory students will have the opportunity to master the latest skills in their field and develop “soft skills” like creative problem-solving problem solving and communication to help them thrive over the course of their careers.
Curiosity to Question: a Multidisciplinary Open-Inquiry Course Focused on Research Design
Cohort: 2016
Fellow: Julia Clarke
Hands-on research experiences for undergraduates offer unique active-learning experiences with real-world questions. These experiences create communities and improve 4-year graduation rates. They may also help create a student body and alumni population that recognize the importance of the research mission of large R1 universities.
Freshman Introduction to Research in Engineering (FIRE)
Cohort: 2015
Fellow: Carolyn Seepersad
The goal of this initiative is to establish a freshman research program for mechanical engineering students that can serve as a template for an engineering-wide freshman research program. Many first-year students express an interest in participating in engineering research early in their college careers, but the perceived barriers can be high. It can be difficult for first-year students to navigate the research enterprise, and many professors are hesitant to hire first-year students. The potential advantages of freshman research, however, are much greater than the barriers
Thinking Beyond the Four Years: Assessing a Program for Coaching Career Success
Cohort: 2015
Fellow: Brad Love
The project is a longitudinal partnership with the Vick Center for Strategic Advising, College of Education faculty, Project 2021 staff, and other Longhorns to measure existing attempts to teach useful skills such as emotional intelligence so that students can make constructive decisions while at UT and then be prepared for the significant life transition that is one’s first career post-graduation. The key activities include semesterly surveys and interviews with students using Vick Center services such as in-person visits and online modules.
Peer Learning Assistant Program Guidelines and Curricula
Cohort: 2015
Fellow: Cynthia LaBrake
The Peer Learning Assistant Program within the Department of Chemistry is a program developed with resources from the Provost Teaching Fellows program to enhance the educational experience of students taking general chemistry by training and employing Peer Learning Assistants (PLAs) to service large blended general chemistry courses. The large (300 –500 students) blended courses have replaced the straight lecture model with active, student centered, learning. Active learning requires coaching and in a large class it is impossible to implement with only one instructor and one tea