Request for proposals: AHS Student Success Awards

** DEADLINE EXTENDED TO MARCH 6, 2024**

The AHS Office of Dean is pleased to announce AHS Student Success Awards, a new funding program to recognize new and innovative pilot projects that improve student retention, persistence, engagement and motivation.

SUMMARY: The AHS Student Success Awards recognize new and innovative pilot projects that improve student retention, persistence, engagement and motivation. The projects are not limited to teaching and learning activities and may include other educational practices that support student success. Projects may include activities that occur inside of the classroom, those that bridge classroom activities with external resources and support, or those that are independent of classroom instruction.

Teaching and learning specific projects should consider Inclusive Excellence and Universal Design concepts. For example, Inclusive Excellence (IE) characterizes teaching that focuses on building a sense of belonging and eliminating unconscious biases in course delivery and content. It involves the recognition that students, faculty and staff succeed together when they value, engage and include diverse ideologies, worldviews and perspectives that emanate from difference. Similarly, Universal Design for Learning (UDL) outlines a set of principles and strategies that allow students with a wide range of learning styles to experience success in a given course. The idea behind UDL is that barriers to learning exist due to rigidity and a lack of accommodation within the learning environment, rather than in the student.

We believe that engaging students in the classroom in ways that build community and bridge connections to resources and supports outside of the classroom are very important. Moreover, identifying ways AHS academic support, student assistance and advising units could partner with faculty in specific courses or programs to offer supplemental instruction; academic skill building; career pathway exploration; or other forms of critical connection and engagement could make a significant impact on our retention. Ultimately, the goal is to create innovations in educational approaches within the College of Applied Health Sciences that best facilitate retention and graduation of all of our students, especially but not solely those at the undergraduate level. 

Funding is available to support AHS faculty and staff for innovations that accomplish at least one of the following:

• Build positive student-faculty engagement activities inside or outside of the classroom.
• Utilize external consultants to provide professional development for faculty and staff aimed at increasing inclusive excellence within a given course or curriculum.
• Apply educational infrastructure (i.e., equipment, software, other digital technologies etc.) to support increased access for all types of learners, including students with disabilities that affect their ability to access educational provision.
• Collaborate with students to conduct a literature review on IE and/or UDL and subsequently develop novel educational delivery approaches based on principles of IE and/or UDL that will be shared broadly and replicated within AHS. Examples of such approaches may include, but are not limited to:
  • The development of a foundational course that builds core competencies for students to better prepare them for the usual entry level course requirements within a given program,
  • the use of technology to improve or eliminate DFW rates within a course,
  • the formation of a novel type of support system for students to build a greater sense of belonging and to destigmatize and de-problematize learning differences.

• Identify specific causes of student attrition and implement appropriate retention strategies to keep students enrolled as identified through best practices.
• Implement educational strategies to promote student engagement, support student learning, and bridge connections between resources available inside and outside of the classroom.  Examples of such strategies may include, but are not limited to:
  • • Supplemental instruction
    • Learning assistants or peer mentors
    • Career pathway exploration opportunities

DETAILS: Five awards of up to $10,000 each and two awards of up to $25,000 each are available.

ELIGIBILITY: AHS faculty and staff with 50% FTE or great of any appointment type or rank are eligible to apply.

APPLICATION: https://go.uic.edu/AHSSuccessRFP

Application deadline: March 6, 2024

Award notifications: April 15, 2024

QUESTIONS: Contact Renee Taylor at rtaylor@uic.edu.