UNE receives Davis Educational Foundation grant to support curricular redesign and faculty development

The University of New England will begin a comprehensive redesign of its undergraduate curriculum thanks to a generous grant from the Davis Educational Foundation, which was established by Stanton and Elisabeth Davis after Mr. Davis’ retirement as chairman of Shaw’s Supermarkets, Inc.

The $254,800 grant will help the university increase student retention and success through the extensive curricular reform project as well as an improved teaching and learning initiative.

“This grant will directly support two major priorities in our newly adopted strategic plan: exceptional teaching and learning, and student retention,” said UNE President James Herbert. “By promoting active learning across the undergraduate curriculum and updating our curriculum, we will undoubtedly help more of our students thrive.”

The project will be facilitated by a two-pronged approach: the university will focus on the completion of a comprehensive curricular redesign that increases flexibility for students to develop their individualized plans of study and minimizes barriers they might encounter when switching their majors, and on implementation of a Teaching and Learning Faculty Development Program that focuses on evidence-based, active learning methods linked to experiential learning.

According to UNE Provost Joshua Hamilton, the university will undergo a rigorous self-assessment of all efforts made in relation to the grant so that its work may serve as a national model for how other institutions of higher education can improve their retention rates.

The university will specifically focus on improving first- and second-year retention, as these, according to Hamilton, are statistically the most impactful years for increasing overall student success and student return on investment. UNE will deconstruct and rebuild the undergraduate curriculum, utilizing findings from a Task Force convened by Herbert in the summer of 2017.

“One of the reasons that colleges and universities lose students, particularly in the first two years, is because students often switch majors then realize that some of their credits won’t count toward their new major, and they get discouraged and drop out or transfer,” Hamilton explained. “We want to redesign a curriculum that acknowledges that the first two years are exploratory. This is a time to expose students to their choices as they learn more about themselves and refine their interests. So, we will create a curriculum with clear pathways to a degree that include many ‘on and off ramps’ that allow for smooth transitions.” The curriculum redesign will also focus much more intentionally and systematically on the student learning outcomes that form the core elements of the UNE strategic plan: habits of mind, discipline-based knowledge, and professional competencies, while also linking more explicitly to hands-on experiential learning. “As part of our new strategic vision, we need to adapt our curriculum to best prepare our students for the world they will enter as professionals,” said Hamilton.

Concurrent to the curricular redesign, UNE will launch a series of workshops for faculty on active learning and related advanced pedagogies, reflecting a national movement in the field of education away from lecture formats that passively transmit information from professor to student, toward interactive classrooms and engaged, hands-on learning. The university will identify four Faculty Fellows per year who will be supported through course release and summer stipends to develop and implement pedagogies in the curricular areas that emerge from the curriculum redesign.

UNE’s Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL), which launched in 2014 as a central resource for UNE faculty and academic staff to advance their knowledge and skills in contemporary, active-learning teaching methods and improved student learning, will play a crucial role in the faculty training process. It will also support the development of hybrid platforms for course delivery that will allow students to combine self-directed work with online learning management platforms with in-class, face-to-face sessions to discuss content and reinforce learning objectives. UNE recently hired Marc Ebenfield, Ph.D., to serve as the new director of CETL. Ebenfield has extensive experience in supporting faculty development in teaching and learning, and has previously worked with the Davis Foundation.

Hamilton believes that the combination of curricular reform and increased efforts to engage students in active learning will significantly assist UNE in reaching the ultimate goal outlined in the strategic plan: student success. But he recognizes that the grant will likely have an even broader-reaching effect. “The impact of the Davis Educational Foundation grant on UNE’s ability to graduate the highest possible rate of successful, career-ready students cannot be overestimated,” he expressed. “Beyond improving our own metrics, the grant enables us to disseminate our findings with other institutions, which is an important and impactful component of our work.”