Central College Faculty Receives $70,000 to Benefit Teaching

by Central College

Pella, IA (08/22/2018) — The Moore Family Foundation Faculty Development Program for Teaching is providing grant funding for 14 faculty projects at Central College for the 2018-19 academic year. The funding totals almost $71,000 for this year.

Individual grants for the 2018-2019 academic year to date average just over $5,000 per grant and range from $3,070 to fund a sabbatical leave for research on relationships to $6,810 to send six faculty members to a workshop on evidence-based teaching. Other projects include:

• Research on ethnographic writing (faculty/student collaborative research)

• Support for faculty development in biochemistry

• Study of the impact of drought on new prairie plantings (faculty/student collaborative research)

• Synthesis of quinone-based supermolecular structures (faculty/student collaborative research)

• Purchase of 10 iPad Pros to support courses in the exercise science program to enrich the education experience of students

The Moore Family Foundation has provided significant support to the college over the years. Since 2013, 123 Central faculty have written 77 grant proposals and received a total of $346,671 in funding from the Moore Family Foundation Faculty Development Program for Teaching.

The foundation's goal is to provide Central faculty with the opportunity to strengthen engagement with students in the classroom and other educational settings. The foundation funds faculty scholarship and professional development in teaching, including:

• New course development

• Sabbatical leave support that directly impacts classroom teaching

• Educational opportunities in the classroom and other learning environments through educational excursions, visitors and guest lecturers

• Equipment for teaching

• Publication or production of creative works

• Workshop, seminar or training registration fees

• Payments to Central students for their work in collaborative research with faculty members

The late Frank Moore '49 and his wife, Grace, who was designated an honorary alumna of Central in 2001, have been long-term generous benefactors to the college. Frank Moore was the director of the human research area files at Yale University, where Grace Moore was a foreign language translation editor. From 1979-1988 Frank Moore was a Central trustee. Together, the couple created two scholarships funded by their annuities, one endowed scholarship, two faculty awards, and a chair in anthropology in addition to ongoing gifts from the Moore Family Foundation.

"We're extremely grateful to the Moore Family Foundation for its generous funding of a variety of initiatives that support faculty development and student learning," says Mary E.M. Strey, vice president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty at Central. "It is one of the many reasons Central can offer students such an exceptionally high-quality education."

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