CTL Faculty Fellows Program
Intellectual conversations are a highlight of being a part of the Amherst College community. These conversations are frequently focused on disciplinary expertise, but many Amherst College faculty are also interested in expanding and sharing their pedagogical expertise. Being a CTL Faculty Fellow offers four faculty an opportunity to engage in and facilitate sustained inquiries focused on teaching and learning. These two-year positions provide support for faculty to focus on an evidence-based pedagogical exploration and to share their learning with peers at Amherst College, at national or international conferences, and through possible publication.
This year's applications are due by May 1st 2024.
Daniel Barbezat
Professor of Economics
2024–2026 Faculty Fellow
Dr. Barbezat plans to continue examining and developing the special role of awareness and contemplation in our pursuit of what is meaningful and how we may foster lives of meaning through our teaching and learning. He also intends to examine the role of contemplation in our response to the increasing importance of generative artificial intelligence.
Anston Bosman
Associate Professor of English
2023–2025 Faculty Fellow
Dr. Bosman's CTL Fellowship focuses on a research project that explores anti-racist and decolonial teaching of Shakespeare. He is currently partnering with a student on publications from this project, and in Spring 2023 Dr. Bosman offered a learning community emerging from this work.
Kate Follette
Assistant Professor of Astronomy
2022–2024 Faculty Fellow
Dr. Follette’s CTL Fellowship focused on the Astronomy major curriculum, particularly attending to successful peer collaboration, inclusive community norms, normalizing struggle and failure as part of the scientific process, and helping students develop a stronger sense of scientific identity.
Dr. Follette's pedagogical research project involved embedding effective practices and assessing the impact of these practices across the Astronomy course sequence.
Kristy Gardner
Assistant Professor of Computer Science
2022–2024 Faculty Fellow
As a CTL Faculty Fellow, Dr. Gardner explored the literature on pedagogical innovation and teaching practices in Computer Science (CS), especially focusing on supporting diverse learners and enhancing students’ analytical skills. During the first year of her fellowship, she developed and implemented a “Math for Computer Science,” pilot course that focuses on students’ analytical abilities early in the CS major sequence.
During the current fellowship year, Dr. Gardner will continue course development; assessing and sharing out the impact of the course.
Carmen Granda
Senior Lecturer in Spanish
2023–2025 Faculty Fellow
Dr. Granda facilitated a learning community focused on decolonizing peer review and writing workshops . Felicia Rose Chavez's work, The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop: How to Decolonize the Creative Classroom, grounded the learning community's conversation.
She is also engaging in research on this topic during her CTL Fellowship.
Shu-Min Liao
Assistant Professor of Statistics
2023–2024 Faculty Fellow Mentor
2022–2023 Faculty Fellow
Dr. Liao focused her fellowship on expanding her knowledge of inclusive and student-centered teaching practices. She integrated this into developing, delivering, and gathering assessment data for a new introductory statistics course, titled, “Happy Intro Stats (STAT 136).” This course incorporated a new method for helping students acquire competency and confidence in their coding skills, while also working with student pedagogical partnerships and embedding evidence-based self-care practices within the course design.
This year Dr. Liao will serve in a faculty fellow mentor position.
Anna Martini
Professor of Geology and Environmental Studies
2024-2026 Faculty Fellow
Dr. Martini will enhance the community-centered and research-based aspects of her Hydrogeology course in order to strengthen students’ learning outcomes. She plans to help students see the connections between the science learned in the classroom and changes that can flow to communities, local and global.
Kristina Reardon
Director of the Intensive Writing Program & Senior Lecturer in English
2023–2024 Faculty Fellow Mentor
2022–2023 Faculty Fellow
As the Director of the Intensive Writing Program and Lecturer in English, Dr. Reardon works to enhance students’ sense of agency about their learning and their motivation for learning, especially in the context of writing skills across the curriculum. In her work as a CTL Faculty Fellow, she facilitated multiple learning communities exploring alternative grading approaches, with a particular focus on issues of equity and inclusion in classroom assessment.
This year Dr. Reardon will serve in a faculty fellow mentor position.