International Gathering of Policy Leaders Discusses Delta Program's Impact

Katherine Friedrich

At the end of the Research and Teaching Colloquium on April 20 in Winchester , United Kingdom , CIRTL leaders Bob Mathieu and Chris Pfund presented the Delta Program as a model of cultural change. Delta is a CIRTL program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The colloquium drew an international audience of policy makers and educators interested in promoting faculty integration of teaching, research, scholarship and service.

"Good teaching is a research problem," Mathieu told the audience. Because this description resonates for many scientists, Delta's outreach efforts emphasize the importance of thinking about teaching this way.

The presentation was based on a paper, "Building Capacity to Achieve Broader Impact through CIRTL." The paper describes Delta's experience with preparing new faculty to consider broader impacts - including social benefits, dissemination, mentoring and teaching - in grant applications. Broader impacts have been an important focus of the National Science Foundation's evaluation of grant applications in recent years.

By leveraging its influence at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a large research institution, Pfund explained, CIRTL hopes to encourage effective and inclusive teaching at all the universities and colleges that hire graduate students from the Delta Program.

Pfund said some departments have been particularly responsive to Delta's message. "When you get dedicated, excited individuals in pockets around campus," she said, more people in those fields enroll in Delta's programs. Faculty involvement has also been an important ingredient of Delta's success.

Delta has drawn the attention of students and faculty in many departments. The interdisciplinary nature of the program is "a great delight," Mathieu commented. However, field-specific differences in the definition of "research" have presented some challenges, according to Pfund.

Pfund noted that different countries have vastly different approaches to encouraging teaching and learning among faculty. She was surprised at the degree of variation that she encountered when talking with colleagues from the UK and Australia .

Since most of the conference focused on higher-level decision making, Pfund said, "people said it was good to end on something concrete."

The complete presentation was recorded on video and is available at the Southampton Solent University web site .

June 25, 2007

CIRTL
1025 W. Johnson St.
Madison, WI 53706
ph.: 608.263.0630
fax: 608.265.0538