Reigniting Our Strategic Directions is one of the most transformational endeavors in Seattle University’s history. One of the key drivers of this transformation is the Provost’s Discretionary Faculty Support Fund. Created in 2021 with a generous gift from alumna Brenda Christensen, ’81, the fund provided support to launch the Provost Fellows, a group of 30 faculty leaders working to realize key initiatives outlined in the Reignited Strategic Directions.
With summer stipends made possible by the fund, Provost Fellows prepared the tools needed to engage hundreds of faculty and staff at the start of the 2022 academic year. Christensen’s gift acted as a catalyst that spurred more funding to support this now multi-year initiative under Goal 1, Reimagine and Revise Our Curriculum. Additional support from the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and other donors empowered Seattle University to continue supporting faculty in this groundbreaking work.
This goal aims to revise the curricula of all 75 undergraduate and graduate departments and programs and create curriculum that employs Ignatian pedagogy and prepares students to “respond to the great challenges facing our society—including sustainability and climate change, racial injustice and widening economic inequity and rapid technological change and its societal and economic impacts,” as described in Strategic Direction Goal 1. Provost Fellows lead “working groups” to achieve this goal of reimagining curricular outcomes and content across departments through workshops, forums, research and tools.
“I’ve significantly benefited from the collaborative and interdisciplinary discussions shared in our working group and with others,” says Associate Professor Claire Garoutte, a Provost Fellow and chair of the Art and Art History Department. “Engaging with faculty, staff and administrators from colleges across campus is a valuable opportunity. We gain a deep understanding of diverse perspectives regarding our programs and how we serve our students and community. The interdisciplinary nature of working together helps us to recognize our commonalities and strengths.”
Kent Koth, executive director of the Sundborg Center for Community Engagement (CCE), leads a community-engaged working group with Provost Fellows Garoutte and Associate Clinical Professor Rebecca McNamara, PhD.
Together, their working group developed a plan to expand the use of community-engaged learning in curriculum now being implemented in eight academic departments. This initiative was supported by the Innovation Fund, created by several CCE supporters, to contribute to the impactful work of the CCE.
“As a university we have a once in a generation opportunity to reimagine and revise our curriculum to more fully prepare our students to lead for a just and humane world,” says Koth. “This is such an exciting time for the university as it invites us to connect our mission and purpose with the world’s great needs and tremendous opportunities.”
Adds McNamara, “We are deeply considering how integrated community engaged learning at Seattle University would both impact and benefit student learning, faculty teaching and community partner work in the neighborhood.”
This engagement, says Garoutte, “centers the needs of the communities we collaborate with while challenging us to reflect upon how our students learn and employ their skills, knowledge and energies toward mutually meaningful and beneficial encounters.”
Last spring, the Provost Fellows’ work was showcased at the Reimagine and Revise Our Curriculum Summit, an opportunity for more than 120 faculty chairs, directors, coordinators and staff members to come together and discuss their work up to that point and progress made in revising their curricula. Break-out groups and workshops helped faculty think about how their curricula can and should connect to the values that align with Seattle University’s mission. Now entering the second year of this work, the focus shifts from reimagining to revising. This year’s Provost Fellows will support revision planning for both undergraduate and graduate programs across disciplines. The university’s Core Curriculum will also be revised by faculty and stakeholders, ensuring all students engage in critical thinking, experiential learning and mission-driven projects.
Provost Fellows Professor and Chair of the History Department Haejeong Hazel Hahn, PhD, and Assistant Professor of Nonprofit Leadership Maureen Emerson Feit, PhD, are two of the five leaders in the racial and economic justice working group that developed a curricular audit tool to be utilized across university departments. This tool can assist faculty in integrating themes of race and justice into course content and establishing inclusive classroom dynamics. The working group will present the curricular audit tool at the American Educational Research Association conference in Philadelphia this spring.
“The funding from the Mellon Foundation on the project ‘Race, Racialization and Resistance in the U.S.’ has provided valuable support for reimagining and revising the curriculum,” Hahn says. “Four retreat proposals and 10 proposals for developing new courses or revising courses were funded in the first cycle of call for proposals, with the awardees representing nine different departments and programs. In the second cycle, four retreat proposals and 13 proposals for courses are being funded.”
The Provost Fellows, working with Charles Tung, Special Assistant to the Provost for Curriculum and co-chair of Goal 1, and John Fleming, Director for Curricular Policy and Programs, with support from the Office of Sponsored Projects and Corporate and Foundation Relations, are seeking out new sources of funding to support curricular innovation in the areas of the impact of technology on society, sustainability and climate change. This donor-supported work of the Provost Fellows is groundbreaking and can serve as a potential model for curriculum revisions nationwide. Provost Shane Martin, PhD, is confident the accomplishments of these fellows will have a lasting impact on current and future Redhawks.
“Seattle University is poised to become a national Jesuit university of distinction through the implementation of the strategic directions. This bold and ambitious plan provides a roadmap for our future that will position our students to be leaders and changemakers with compassion, competence and conscience,” Provost Martin says. “The impact our students will make in the world—buoyed by the results of our efforts to strengthen the university—will be the true legacy of Seattle University and our mission.”
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To support the Provost’s Discretionary Faculty Support Fund, please contact Norma Fuentes, Assistant Vice President for Development, at fuentesn@seattleu.edu.