Lilly Teaching Fellows Program

History

Applications from over forty faculty were received each year. Junior fellows were selected based upon the quality of their proposed teaching projects, their commitment to teaching, and their long-term promise for promotion and tenure. The selection process included a review of the fellow applications, project descriptions, department head recommendations, and academic records of both the Junior and Senior applicants. In addition, personal interviews with the six junior and senior finalists for each year of the Lilly Program were conducted.

Objectives

1. to encourage junior faculty to enhance their teaching skills;
2. to assist junior faculty in building high quality records of both teaching and scholarship that will improve their probability of obtaining tenure and promotion;
3. to initiate a mechanism that will contribute to an institutional environment in which senior faculty view assisting in the development of junior faculty as a professional responsibility;
4. to build a cadre of faculty who will provide leadership with regard to instructional enhancement;
5. to provide an institutional mechanism for enhancing the status of teaching.

Activities and Significant Accomplishments

1. The Fellows participated in monthly Lilly program seminars that addressed teaching development and faculty enhancement.
2. The Fellows attended the teaching breakfasts.
3. The Junior Fellows attended biannual national Lilly Teaching Conferences.
4. The Fellows engaged in classroom peer observations, between Junior and Senior Fellow pairs (both ways) as well as among the Junior Fellows.
5. The Senior Fellows served as mentors for the Junior Fellows, providing assistance and advice regarding teaching skill development and general professional advancement.
6. The Junior Fellows, with guidance from their Senior Fellow, designed and completed a project that focused on teaching improvement and integration of teaching and scholarship.

A number of noteworthy accomplishments have been achieved as a result of the Lilly Teaching Fellows Program. These accomplishments include the following.

1. Manuscripts from several Junior Fellows have been published in journals that address teaching issues in the Fellows' academic disciplines.
2. As a direct result of Junior Fellows projects:
   • the curricula for laboratories in the Physics and Marine Science Departments have been revised,
   • courses in African-American studies, differential equations, education, logic, organic chemistry, and others have been significantly strengthened,
   • a videotape and related materials on the effective use of multi-media in teaching are now available for use by all USC faculty from the College of Education.
3. Following their participation in the Teaching Fellows Program, a number of the Junior Fellows have become active in promoting and supporting teaching activity throughout the University. This activity includes responsibilities as members of the University Faculty Committee on Instructional Development, the Mungo Selection Committee, and the Instructional Innovation Grants Selection Committee, as well as participation on the Preston Residential College Advisory Committee.
4. Both Junior and Senior fellows have participated as leaders in subsequent teaching seminars for Junior and Senior Fellows in ensuing years of the program, as well as programs sponsored by the University for all faculty system wide, such as the successful ongoing monthly teaching breakfasts.
5. Several Junior Fellows co-directed two Lilly South Teaching Conferences held in Columbia (Spring 1995 and 1996). Over 100 faculty from throughout the nation, as well as several faculty from USC, participated in each conference. USC faculty members Drs. John Gardner and Douglas Williams delivered the Keynote Addresses at these conferences.
6. The program was not remedial, but rather gave promising young faculty members the opportunity to interact with some of the University's successful teacher/scholars, as evident by the fact that:
   • eight Lilly Fellows were cited in the 1993-94 USC President's Report,
   • five Lilly Fellows have received Mungo Teaching Awards,
   • two Lilly Fellow and two Lilly directors have received the Amoco Teaching Award.