The Faculty Resource Network--a 28 member award-winning consortium which links fourteen liberal arts colleges in the Northeast, twelve historically black colleges and universities in the South, and one predominantly minority institution in the Midwest with New York University-proposes to build on its decade of experience in improving undergraduate teaching by initiating an intensive three-year faculty enrichment program focusing on the teaching of introductory and advanced undergraduate courses in molecular and cellular biology and the development of innovative laboratory techniques. Two summer residential workshops form the centerpiece of the program. The first, in 1996, will focus on introductory molecular biology courses and the second, in 1997, on advanced molecular biology courses. The workshops will introduce faculty to the latest methods and techniques of molecular biology and explore new means of teaching biology that incorporate innovative hands-on and inquiry-based methods. At the conclusion of each of the workshop sessions, participants will have produced a curricular packet, which includes summaries of major lecture themes, laboratory experiments, relevant bibliographical materials, and teaching strategies, for direct classroom application. During the academic years following each summer workshop, a series of local campus-based colloquia at the home institutions will be held. Workshop participants, who will have tested and refined the material developed during their summer study, will lead these colloquia, and will have an opportunity to share their new knowledge and teaching techniques with colleagues. Publications summarizing these conclusions on curricular and pedagogical methods will be published and distributed to the 600 Network faculty members teaching in the sciences, together with faculty members of other colleges and universities linked to the Network through the Leadership Alliance and CCTOP, a tri-state community college consortium. In Summer 1998, the program will conclude with a three-day conference held at Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia. At the this concluding event, program participants will make presentations on the refined curricular and pedagogical innovations they have tested in their classrooms to an audience of scientists from Network institutions and beyond. Undergraduate Faculty Enhancement in Teaching Molecular and Cellular Biology will be of particular interest to biologists, but it will also benefit other science faculty whose work involves an aspect of molecular biology, as well as those who are interested in effective and innovative teaching strategies in the sciences. By introducing faculty to new and important areas of the life sciences and by emphasizing different pedagogical applications, the program will improve the quality of learning for the 80,000 students on Network college campuses.
