The Grant
The Epiphany Project will start in July, 1995 and is one of the first grants received under the actual name of the Alliance. This project, which will provide an array of materials and syllabi and other support for schools to start faculty training workshops in the area of computers and writing, is a model for how the Alliance can work for the benefit of all.Epiphany will be funded by The Annenberg/Corporation for Public Broadcasting Project. The award is for $204,000 over two years. The prime contractor is Gallaudet University. I am the Project Director; John O'Connor of George Mason University and Stephen Gilbert of the American Association for Higher Education are the co-principle investigators.
Test Sites
The Project involves testbed sites in Richmond, VA: the University of Richmond and Virginia Commonwealth University. George Mason University will supply the graduate student researcher to observe the testbed sites in operation. SRI International of Palo Alto, CA, will produce a video, guide the ethnographic work, and provide project evaluation. The AAHE will integrate Epiphany work with the national Teaching, Learning, Technology Roundtables network that started this past fall. Texas Tech University will provide guidance regarding training teaching assistants.In other words, the Alliance has put together a project involving five universities, a research and consulting center, and a professional association. Work that would be difficult to achieve independently is within the reach of this kind of multi- institutional team.
Epiphany will be coordinated with another project funded by Annenberg and directed by Leslie Harris which focuses on use of MOOs for teaching.
Epiphany, and other efforts to train faculty in this area, all owe a huge debt to the pioneering work of Cindy Selfe, who, for years, has run her 2-week Michigan Tech training workshop.
How the funding is divided up
Very little money goes to any one institution from this grant (divide even a large amount like $200,000 by 7, and spread it over 2 years and it becomes clear that the money is not as important as the concept of powerful collaboration). Yet, we expect this Project, tied as it is to the TLTR process within AAHE, to provide significant impetus to faculty development in the next few years.The Alliance can operate in a number of ways, but it became clear to me very early on in the brief history of the Alliance that we needed to do more than merely put people in contact with each other. We need to create working groups. The working groups, over time, can produce ideas and materials that will be valuable as Alliance resources.
The Alliance provides an umbrella under which many projects can operate. It is a catalyzing agent to create working groups and to attract funding support for those groups. This is only one of many ways the Alliance can work. The funded projects we will support and help develop have to:
Few of us have the time to do heavy volunteer work for the Alliance; however, universities often will support re-assigned time in pursuit of funded projects. Thus, funded projects are likely to actually add the value they promise.
- agree with the goals of the Alliance, and
- provide benefits for the whole Alliance.
We are interested in supporting other funded projects within the Alliance. Of special interest right now are projects involving ESL and computers or cooperation between K-12 and university. Contact twbatson@gallua.gallaudet.edu to talk about developing grant projects.
Comments are appreciated.