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Central College Receives $76,000 to Benefit Teaching

by Central College

Pella, IA (07/20/2020) — The Moore Family Foundation Faculty Development Program for Teaching is providing grant funding for 14 faculty projects at Central College for the 2020-21 academic year. The funding total is more than $76,000.

Funding supports projects, some of which are:

  • An exploratory trip to Chile to develop short-term, faculty-led study abroad opportunities.
  • A workshop to provide faculty an opportunity to develop skills in teaching writing and information literacy.
  • The development of a new assessment model and narrative for the English major.
  • A student-directed effort to create an app to digitize a dichotomous key for identifying bats.
  • An endeavor to complete identification of wild bees in Iowa using DNA barcoding in a collaborative research program with a student.
  • Research for submission of a National Science Foundation grant on the practical applications of a new class of molecules introduced in a research lab at Central.

The Moore Family Foundation has provided significant support to the college over the years. Since 2013, 68 Central faculty have written 105 grant proposals and received $481,291 in funding from the Moore Family Foundation 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 education settings. The foundation funds faculty 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
  • Workshop, seminar or training registration fees
  • Payments to Central students for their work in collaborative research with faculty members

The late Frank Moore, Central Class of '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 was the director of the human research area files at Yale University, where Grace was a foreign language translation editor. From 1979-88, Frank 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 related to 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."

Central College of Pella, Iowa, is a private, four-year liberal arts college. Central is known for its academic rigor, leadership and character development, global experiential learning, STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) and sustainability education, athletics and service. For more information about Central College: www.central.edu.

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One of the projects funded by the Moore Family Foundation Faculty Development Program for Teaching will be a student-directed effort to create an app to digitize a dichotomous key for identifying bats.

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