New Faculty Interest Form: Inquiring Minds Wanted

If you are interested in teaching a small, inquiry-guided, general education course, teaching in the First Year Inquiry program or University Honors Program may be for you.

First Year Inquiry (FYI) classes are inquiry-guided sections of only 19 students in an established general education course. Courses are limited to first-year freshmen and are offered every fall semester.

University Honors Program (HON) seminars are small sections of 20 or fewer students who are encouraged to engage with faculty in knowledge-building and creative activities. These sections are intended to provide a holistic “minds-on” research experience with a cross-disciplinary context. They also place an emphasis on co-curricular programming. Honors seminars are limited to students in the University Honors and Scholars Programs.

[pullquote color=”wolfpackred” align=”aligncenter”]These programs offer exciting opportunities to create an engaging, student-centered learning environment which encourages active inquiry, critical and creative thinking.[/pullquote]

In order to further this goal, the programs have partnered with the TH!NK program which seeks to bridge the gap between evidence-based research on teaching and actual teaching practices in the classroom. Faculty members will participate in a half-day training workshop, modeled after TH!NK training workshops. They will engage in faculty development, create discipline-specific classroom activities and assignments, become adept at providing students feedback on their thinking skills, and engage in a learning community to provide peer feedback on pedagogical innovations. Depending on the program, full or partial course buyouts are available as well as a $250 stipend associated with the half-day training workshop in April.

A new Faculty Interest Form allows tenure and non-tenure track faculty from across the university to express their interest in teaching an honors seminar and/or an FYI course through a single application.

For more information:
University Honors Program, Anne Auten – acauten@ncsu.edu
First Year Inquiry program, Elizabeth Nelson – first-year-inquiry@ncsu.edu
TH!NK, Sue Carson – sdcarson@ncsu.edu