PTF Impacts
Provost's Teaching Fellows have made lasting impacts in their departments, colleges and schools, all of the University of Texas, and even the broader scholarship of teaching and learning. Through both individual initiatives and university-wide programs, PTFs continue to serve as catalysts for positive change and further our campus culture of teaching and learning.
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Teaching Tips 2023-2024
Each year, the PTF Chair-Elect has the opportunity to share recurring Teaching Tips with the all faculty at UT. These messages cover a variety of topics, styles, and methodologies, from brief and practical classroom strategies to in-depth conversations with voices from across campus.
New Courses Launched: General Chemistry Laboratory Courses CH104M and CH014N
In Fall 2024, PTF Ruth Shear helped launch the new general chemistry labs, rewritten to include Research Methods material (rebranded "thinking like a scientist"), and taught to 4500 students. This involved a complete overhaul of the CH204 general chemistry lab course, turning it into two classes: CH104M and CH104N. These courses are required for the vast majority of CNS majors as well as all pre-health students. The courses were piloted in Fall 2024 with 400 students, and fully launched in Fall 2025 with over 4500 students.
Additional Initiative Funding (COLA)
PTF Julia Mickenberg worked with her Graduate Assistant and collaborator, Ricky Shear (Department of English), on a survey of UT liberal arts alumni aiming to find out what alumni valued about their liberal arts degrees and how they felt those degrees limited them. The College of Liberal Arts provided Mickenberg with additional funding in order to broaden the scope of the survey from department-specific alumni to the entire College.
University Writing Center Resources
D'Arcy Randall's PTF Initiative created a collaboration between the Cockrell School of Engineering and The University Writing Center to create resources and consultant trainings to better support STEM students in technical writing projects and assignments. As a result of the Initiative's work and findings, a number of STEM-specific UWC resources have been created and/or revised, which can be found on the UWC website.
Teaching Tips 2019-2020
Each year, the PTF Chair-Elect has the opportunity to share recurring Teaching Tips with all faculty at UT. These messages cover a variety of topics, styles, and methodologies, from brief and practical classroom strategies to in-depth conversations with voices from across campus.
Entrepreneurship Minor, McCombs School of Business
As part of his PTF Initiative, Luis Martins founded the Entrepreneurship Minor within the McCombs School's Rosenthal Department of Management. The Entrepreneurship Minor is available to all undergraduate students at UT Austin, and develops entrepreneurial mindsets and skillsets that equip students to have impact on organizations and society as startup founders or as employees in established organizations.