Private funds designated for rewarding scholarship are available and I want to use them for a series of Teaching Scholarship Awards. The awards will be given annually to students demonstrating an ability to create and present excellent short courses needed by VIMS graduate students but which are not available within the regular curriculum. Potential contributors are strongly encouraged to speak with Dr. Anderson before developing a full proposal. For the award, proposals must be submitted to Fonda Powell by April 21. The Dean and Associate Dean will begin assessing them soon after that date. It is anticipated that most of courses will be taught during the summer, but some will be taught during the spring semester.

This award is intended to (1) foster teaching excellence in topics areas needed by the VIMS graduate community, (2) visibly emphasize that VIMS/SMS recognizes and supports teaching excellence, and (3) enhance the students' teaching credentials. The following topics of particular interest are those identified in the recent survey; however, strong support for other topics may justify funding:

• Statistics and/or Experimental Design (15 students requested)
• MatLab (16 students requested)
• Stella (8 students requested)
• Web Design (13 students requested)
• Database Management/Development (12 students requested)
• SAS (10 students requested)
• GIS (18 students requested)

Up to $3000 is available to support short course (1 to 5 days) development. Monies will be supplied to cover reasonable costs of developing materials and executing the course, e.g., class overheads, electronic media, and supplies. (Materials developed under this funding, e.g., a software package, will be the property of the Graduate Program and must be returned to the Program so that future students can develop courses with them.) The anticipated maximum award is $750 unless a convincing argument is made for more. The award would be administered from a VIMS account to enable purchases to be made according to normal procedures. After receiving the award and completing the teaching, students must supply a full copy of all materials to the Dean of Graduate Studies for archiving. Evaluations of the course and instructors by student participants will also be required.

Applications should be no longer than five (5), single spaced (10 pt.) pages and must include the following:

1. Cover material with name(s), affiliations of the proposed instructor(s), and a faculty member willing to act as a teaching mentor (0.25 page max.). Include the mentor’s signature next to his/her name.
2. An introduction explaining the need for the course, basic structure of the course and associated rationale for this structure, and all required resources. (It is the instructor’s responsibility to ensure that all resources are made available for teaching the course and costs do not exceed the award amount.)(2 page max)
3. Expertise of the instructor(s) for teaching the course (1 page max.)
4. A detailed course outline (1 page max.)
5. Budget for proposed course (0.75 page max.)
6. One page instructor cv(s) (The cv’s are in addition to the 5 page maximum)

Note: Please be careful with the budget. No additional funds are available if the proposed budget is exceeded.