Faculty Gets Teaching Grant

The Danforth Foundation yesterday announced that it will award Harvard a three-year, $207,500 grant to create a program that will help graduate teaching fellows improve the quality of their teaching.

The program will include new opportunities for teaching fellows to work with senior faculty on methods of pedagogy, seminars on teaching techniques, experimentation with new ideas on instruction and increased usage of such facilities as videotapes and computers.

Dean K. Whitla, director of the Office of Instructional Research and Evaluation, will serve as executive director of the program, called the Center for Teaching in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

Whitla said yesterday, "If the center does as it is supposed to, it will definitely enhance the teaching experience of graduate students, which is important, as a lot of places these days are thinking more and more about teaching rather than scholarship alone." Whitla also said the center will be "a direct benefit to the College."

Whitla said the grant "will be free money that we in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences have never had in the past, strictly for pedagogy."

President Bok said last night that the grant is "added money, to be used on new programs rather than to supplement existing ones."

The center will participate with neighboring institutions. Whitla said, "MIT is one we'd particularly hope to work with, as well as Tufts and B.U."

Erwin Sizer, dean of MIT--which also applied for the grant--said yesterday, "I'm sure Harvard's plan was equally as good [as ours]."

Sizer said, "With all our cross-registration and everything, I'm sure what is good for Harvard is good for us."

The center will be governed by an administrative board made up of Dean Rosovsky, faculty members and representatives of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

Rosovsky said the grant would not directly aid his proposed study of undergraduate education. "I think that this is directed less at my letter [on undergraduate education] than at the improvement of teaching techniques," he said.

The Harvard center is the sixth in the United States to be funded by the Danforth Foundation. "I'm terribly happy and hope that we will be able to put together a successful program," Bok said.