Frick Course Development and Innovation Grants

Call for proposals: Frick Course Development and Innovation Grants

The Office of the Provost, with support by the Frick Initiative, is seeking courses that support students in exploring opportunities for finding purpose within a particular field or area of intellectual inquiry.  Specifically, we are soliciting proposals for courses that do so either through 1) the lenses of interdisciplinary thinking or 2) exploration of civic awareness and responsibility. These topics are central to our call as we believe they (among others) naturally promote heightened awareness of the perspectives and frameworks we use to interact with the world and with each other within societies.  That awareness, in turn, supports an individual’s development of a robust sense of purpose, oriented towards the common good.

To that end, we are offering grants for undergraduate courses to be taught in the 2025-2026 or 2026-2027 academic year. These grants may be used to revise an existing course to meet the goals described below or to support the development of a new course aligned with these goals.

Below, we offer further details on our two focus areas:

A) Advanced Beyond Boundaries courses

Current Beyond Boundaries courses are team-taught by faculty across disciplines. They are limited to first-year students and have no prerequisites. They introduce interdisciplinary engagement using a particular theme or issue.

We are seeking courses that will expand this model to more advanced students through 3000-4000 level team-taught courses. These new, upper-level courses courses should demonstrate how bringing together different methods, assumptions, frameworks and worldviews, can generate opportunities for innovation and discovery across such foundational differences. Discussion between course faculty should model generative intellectual disagreement in hopes that this builds in our students the same kinds of skillsets. We are looking for classes that help test our hypothesis that disciplinary diversity can facilitate building students’ capacities for open-minded inquiry, which in turn can help students find their path towards engaged citizenship and a life of personal meaning.

Courses can be restricted to students in particular majors and may have prerequisites. These courses would ideally be grounded enough in the disciplines of their instructors as to count towards majors and/or minors in the departments/programs of both faculty. Courses that leverage experiential learning are of particular interest. Enrollment targets are at the discretion of the instructors but should not be smaller than 15 students.

Given the focus on interdisciplinary learning, the Beyond Boundaries program will be a natural partner in supporting the delivery of funded courses.

B) Immersive civic awareness and responsibility

We define civic responsibility broadly as “active participation in the public life of a community in an informed, committed, and constructive manner, with a focus on the common good.” Successful proposals will be for courses centered on developing one or more aspects of civic responsibility. Among other possibilities, courses may build students’ understanding of processes for civic engagement, enhance students’ capacity for critical analysis and productive engagement on social and political issues, or help students identify and articulate their own sense of purpose.

We expect these courses will generally be offered without pre-requisites to students at any stage of their college career, but will consider courses with enrollment restrictions if necessary to create an effective learning environment. Enrollment targets are at the discretion of the instructor(s) but should not be smaller than 30 students.

Given the focus on civic learning, the Weidenbaum Center and the Gephardt Institute will be natural partners in supporting the delivery of these courses.

Application Details

Across both categories of courses, instructors should structure opportunities for students to make their learning personal and experiential. Put another way, students should have the opportunity, through assignments, class discussions, or other experiential learning mechanisms, to connect their learning in the course to their sense of purpose, their goals for their future, and/or how they are building their capacity to engage productively with those different from them.

The Center for Teaching and Learning offers a range of options—from institutes to workshops to one-on-one consultation– to support course and learning outcome design and pedagogical innovation.  Preference will be given to proposals that include utilization of CTL resources.

Funding may be requested up to $10,000 per proposal. Supported expenses may include:

• Up to $5000 per instructor stipend for course development.
• Up to $3750 per instructor for a robust modification of an existing course to meet the above standards
• Up to $2500 per proposal to support course-related expenses (travel to events, event admission, honoraria for guest speakers, etc.)

Proposals should include:

• A description of the proposed course (500 words maximum), including key learning outcomes*, that makes clear how the instructor will attempt to further the goals described above. The description should include information on course format, pedagogical style, and/or a description of how class time will be used. A syllabus is not necessary.
• Any past or planned collaboration with the Center for Teaching and Learning that would support effective course design
• Any requirements the course would (potentially, if new course) satisfy for school or major
• How the instructor(s) will determine whether course goals/learning objectives were achieved (see below)
• If the course proposed is new, or would normally not be taught within the ’25-26 or ’26-27 academic year, approval from the relevant chair(s)/director(s) for the instructor(s) to teach the proposed course in this academic year (pending any necessary curricular approvals)
• Amount and intended use of requested funding

Deliverables:

Within 2 months of the completion of the first course offering, grant recipients will submit: a course syllabus, results of learning outcome assessment, and a brief (< 500 word) description of lessons learned from this offering of the course.

Proposal submission and review:

Proposals will be reviewed on a rolling basis; priority will be given to proposals received by July 1st.

To apply, please complete the grant application form.

Questions about proposal submission logistics may be referred to the Center for Teaching and Learning (ctl@wustl.edu).

Questions about proposal content, *including those about learning objectives we are developing for related work, may be directed to Jen Smith (jensmith@wustl.edu) or Peter Boumgarden (boumgardenp@wustl.edu) in the Provost Office.