Individual Fellow Initiatives
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
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.
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.
Student Success and Well-being
Cohort: 2020
Fellow: Nina Telang
My project is designed to support engineering students primarily in their freshman and sophomore years, when they struggle the most, resulting in high failing rates. Students do not always implement the best study strategies as they transition from high school to college, and do not prioritize their self-care and well-being. College level coursework is significantly more difficult compared to high school level courses and require more critical and abstract thinking.
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.
Diversifying Our Course Materials
Cohort: 2019
Fellow: Lee Ann Kahlor
(Project completed 2021) In my lectures, I rely on supplementary videos to break up the pace of the lecture and introduce new concepts. However, when I search for videos online, I have trouble finding a diverse representation. As a result, I end up with an oversampling of white male scholars in my course.
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.
One Book One School Community-Wide Reading Program
Cohort: 2019
Fellow: Amelia Acker
(Project completed 2021) Reading in community broadens our understanding of how we belong and how we connect to one another. I propose to develop and execute a community-wide collective reading program including related events programming around one book that addresses topics related to diversity, equity, and inclusion issues featuring a topic around the design, use, and implementation of data-driven technologies at UT’s iSchool. Typical diversity and inclusion initiatives in iSchools focus on curriculum development.
Facilitation of Student Success in Introductory Accounting
Cohort: 2019
Fellow: Kristina Zvinakis
The students participating in this project are part of a group of students known as McCombs Success Scholars (MSS). Such students have been identified as potentially not as well prepared for academic success as some of their McCombs-school peers (i.e., they grew up in smaller cities/towns, their family’s socio-economic status tilts toward the lower end of the scale, they attended a small high school).
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.
Difficult Dialogues Faculty Learning Community
Cohort: 2019
Fellow: Pauline Strong
(Project completed 2021) Since its inception at UT in 2006, the Difficult Dialogues (DD) program has worked with over 40 faculty in 8 colleges or schools to develop Difficult Dialogue signature courses, i.e., introductory UGS courses that promote respectful and productive dialogue about difficult and controversial social issues, including race and ethnicity, gender and sexuality, religion, human rights, immigration, evolution, climate change and sustainability, and illness and mortality.
Strategic Course Redesign Focused on Professional Skills
Cohort: 2018
Fellow: Kristin Patterson
The goal of this project is to shift the focus of a set of introductory courses, that are heavy in disciplinary content, in order to make space for greater emphasis on professional skills, such as information literacy, quantitative reasoning, communication, and others. The main challenge in accomplishing the goal is that the particular courses involved have high-enrollment—2300 undergraduates enroll in each course each year and they are taught by a team of 13 faculty. Because many faculty teach the courses, it is difficult to standardize the curriculum and the expectations across sections.
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.
Teaching Patient Safety at the Bedside
Cohort: 2017
Fellow: Chris Moriates
Creating a culture of patient safety in teaching hospitals results in safer care delivery. The many demands of the current clinical learning environment make it challenging to routinely and effectively include bedside teaching and role-modeling of patient safety. We used a “positive deviance” model, which has been applied in various settings to help change cultural practices, to identify clinical faculty who model and teach patient safety principles during direct patient care.
Collaborative Effort–Teaching General Physics
Cohort: 2017
Fellow: Christina Markert
I have been teaching general physics for non-Physics majors since 2008. I have implemented interactive learning elements into my lecture and “real life” questions, which allows the students to have short (3-4 minutes) discussion in small groups to find solutions for the given questions. I have seen improvement in student engagement and finally in test scores, especially within the semester as the students embrace this style of teaching. However, in order to really affect improvement, I communicate with other physics faculty to reflect on the evaluation of successful teaching.
Race and Curriculum Revision Project
Cohort: 2017
Fellow: Keffrelyn Brown
While the U.S. is more racially open and culturally diverse than at any other time in its history, intolerance and marginalization—often around issues of race, culture and difference—continue to exist. This is punctuated in university settings where students of color find more access to opportunity, yet encounter socially and intellectually non-inclusive environments. UT-Austin stands at the forefront of concerns around race and equity, most recently with the Fisher decision and the current state lawsuit against UT-Austin regarding race discrimination in admissions.
CREEES Fusion Room: an Interdisciplinary Digital Workshop
Cohort: 2016
Fellow: Mary Neuburger
This project entailed the creation of a curricular context and physical space for collaborative interdisciplinary teaching and research for faculty and students interested in Russian, East European and Eurasian studies. This was achieved in two ways. First, I transformed the required gateway course to our major, “Introduction to Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies,” which had been a disjointed “parade of faculty” course with disconnected guest speakers.