Past Initiatives
- Provost’s Initiative on Building Intellectual Community
- Provost’s Initiative on Engaging the Community
- Provost’s Initiative on Diversifying the Curriculum
- Provost’s Initiative on Grand-Challenge Courses
- Provost’s Initiative on Team Teaching
- Undergraduate Learning & Formation Initiative
Provost’s Initiative on Building Intellectual Community
The Provost’s Initiative on Building Intellectual Community was designed to assist faculty members in engaging with colleagues in other departments, colleges, and schools about important topics outside one’s discipline. While many of these conversations occur regularly across campus, this program provided modest funding to support more formal and structured exchanges in the hope that the intellectual community would be strengthened and new ideas or initiatives would be developed.
Provost’s Initiative on Engaging the Community
The Provost’s Initiative on Engaging the Community encouraged faculty members to develop innovative ways to share their research, scholarship, and other creative endeavors with members of the local and regional community.
Provost’s Initiative on Diversifying the Curriculum
To flourish in an increasingly complex and global world, students must have greater understanding, awareness, and appreciation of gender, racial/ethnic, cultural, and socioeconomic diversity. The Provost's Initiative on Diversifying the Curriculum was designed to assist faculty members in creating or redesigning courses to incorporate or address diversity issues.
Provost’s Initiative on Grand-Challenge Courses
Because of their considerable complexity, many of the important challenges and issues facing contemporary societies require a multidisciplinary approach and broad perspective if we are to understand and ultimately resolve them. The Provost's Initiative on Grand-Challenge Courses encouraged faculty members to provide our undergraduate students with an opportunity to address these grand challenges through a team-taught, multidisciplinary course.
Request for Proposals and Application Procedures, 2011-2012 (61.4 kb PDF)
Provost’s Initiative on Team Teaching
The intention here was to encourage and facilitate the creation and offering of new interdisciplinary courses team-taught by two or more faculty from two or more colleges/schools. Proposals were accepted for courses at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.
Application Procedures for Fall 2010 Courses (22.6 kb PDF)
Undergraduate Learning & Formation Initiative
This initiative concerned the creation of a statement that articulates a vision for undergraduate learning and formation at Notre Dame. The University has long been deeply committed to providing an exceptional undergraduate educational experience that is enriched by Catholic intellectual, religious, and cultural traditions. Notwithstanding, as of several years ago, the University had not articulated in any comprehensive or distinctive way what it seeks to instill in its undergraduates. In an effort to address this matter, the provost asked a group of faculty, administrators, and students to generate—in consultation with the University community—a statement of Notre Dame’s core vision for undergraduate learning and formation. The aim was for the statement to encapsulate the breadth of ways in which the University seeks to cultivate undergraduate students as whole persons with attention to their intellectual, spiritual, ethical, and social development. Academic Council officially approved Notre Dame's Vision for Undergraduate Education in March 2009.
Letter to Faculty Announcing Undergraduate Learning and Formation Initiative (19.7 kb PDF)
Vision Statement Approved by Academic Council (Meeting Minutes) (21.3 kb PDF)
| Name | Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Carl Ackermann | Finance |
| Sunny K. Boyd | Biological Sciences |
| Rev. John Conley, C.S.C. | Rector Siegfried Hall |
| Lawrence Cunningham | Theology |
| Stephen Fallon | Program of Liberal Studies |
| Ann Firth | Associate Vice President, Student Affairs |
| Agustin Fuentes | Anthropology |
| Carol Hendrickson | Student |
| Christopher Kolda | Physics |
| Rev. William M. Lies, C.S.C. | Center for Social Concerns |
| Scott Malpass | Vice President and Chief Investment Officer |
| Valerie L. Sayers | English |
| Siiri Scott | Film, Television, and Theatre |
| Stephen E. Silliman | Civil Engineering and Geological Sciences |
| John Stamper | Architecture |
| Billy Sullivan | Student |
| Priscilla Wong | Campus Ministry |