Leipzig Faculty Fellow Description and Application
Imagine the ACU Leipzig villa filled with ACU students, community members, German students, and various faculty. There’s just been a concert, or an evening lecture, or a shared meal, and now people are sipping coffee, snacking on dessert, and standing in small groups discussing the evening’s events, sharing in rich conversations about the world and our place in it from a variety of perspectives and with a wide range of people.
The role of the Leipzig Faculty Fellow is to cultivate such experiences, allowing the Leipzig campus to be a hub of intellectual conversation among ACU students, faculty, and members of the academic and civic communities in Leipzig. The fellow’s role might include hosting coffee-house conversations, mini-conferences, or lyceum, inviting community members and students to engage with one another and their enriching study-abroad environment.
Each semester one faculty fellow will spend a significant portion of a semester in Leipzig working on a research or creative project. The proposed project requires that the fellow spend a significant percentage of their release time in building connections with local Leipzig professionals and community members and providing a minimum of two student experiences connected to the work of the fellow.
The Leipzig Faculty Fellow will build on existing connections in Leipzig and work to develop new ones, contributing to innovative, experiential learning opportunities for both students in residence at the time of the fellowship and those future students who would benefit. As new relationships are formed, discipline-specific opportunities in Leipzig increase, allowing for new course offerings, connections to diverse majors, and a wider range of faculty who can participate.
Study abroad is a high-impact practice, and student outcomes from participating in a study abroad experience include: increased connection to academic content, increased ability to think critically about complex issues and situations, increased ability to work and live cross-culturally, increased personal development in ambiguous circumstances, and greater self-efficacy and overall self-confidence. The Leipzig Faculty Fellow’s role will connect directly to these learning outcomes, making important connections between students, academic disciplines, and the community of Leipzig. The required minimum of two student experiences provides the opportunity for ACU students to interact with the Leipzig community in new innovative, experiential learning activities each semester that a faculty fellow is in residence.
Awards and Eligibility
Leipzig Faculty Fellow awards are contingent on merit and available funding. Applications are reviewed initially by the department chairperson and dean of the faculty member, who then provide a form directly to the review panel. The Leipzig Faculty Fellow Review Panel reviews all materials and makes recommendations. The fellowship is awarded for one semester and provides the recipients with funding to cover transportation to and from Leipzig, a stipend of up to $5000 for cost of living and project costs, a furnished living space in the ACU Leipzig Villa, and departmental funding to cover the courses that the recipient would have taught during the semester.
In most cases, the minimum time and energy a recipient devotes to these awards must be equal to a normal semester’s work. If the faculty member is proposing a project requiring less time, the faculty member should justify the time allowances. Other work unrelated to the leave project is strongly discouraged and will be a factor in determining the granting of a fellowship. Applicants who expect to be engaged in other work during the semester (compensated or not) must notify the review panel of the possibility and document the fact that such work will not interfere with the completion of the proposed project. Recipients should not be recipients of a Faculty Renewal Leave in the same or subsequent semesters as receiving a fellowship.
The Chair’s Review Form and Dean’s Review Form are linked below and are due electronically on or before the last Monday in January to the Faculty Fellow Review Panel. The independent reviews by deans and chairs are evaluation documents indicating that the department/college is in support of such a project. They are confidential and should be submitted separately from the application.
Outcomes/Deliverables
Upon completion of the fellowship semester, recipients should provide a narrative to the Review Panel containing the following information:
- Description of work
- Key Players and their contact information
- Outcomes for students, recipients, Leipzig partners, and ACU
- Based on the experience you created, who is the main audience (students — possibly specific majors — experts, the community) for this programming? How might components of the experiences you created be useful to students in the future? What recommendations do you have for continuing and furthering the work that you began through this fellowship?
Evaluations
Each application will be evaluated by the members of the Leipzig Faculty Fellow Review Panel based upon the criteria listed below. Please note that the worth of a project can be judged only by the written proposal.
- Overall quality of the project (75%)
- Description and rationale of the project
- Contribution to student and program growth and development in Leipzig
- Enhancement of professional growth of the applicant
- Enhancement of ACU’s image and reputation
- Likelihood of successful completion (25%)
Application
Application Format
Applicants should submit a word document containing a narrative addressing the following information by emailing it to the Adams Center at laura.carroll@acu.edu by the last Monday in January.
- General Information
- Name
- Department
- Rank
- Have you led Study Abroad experiences before? When and where?
- Semester for which faculty fellow role leave is sought
- Length of proposed project
- Length of proposed residence in Leipzig
- How many years of full-time service do you have at ACU?
- Description and Rationale of the Proposed Project
- Title
- Theme of the project, connecting to your discipline and Leipzig
- Describe the conversations that you hope to host as faculty fellow
- Describe connections to student outcomes
- What are the expected tangible products (e.g., coffee-house conversations, concerts, art exhibitions, mini-conferences, or liceum) of this project? (Reminder – there must be a minimum of two student experiences connected to the work of the fellow)
- What connections will you need to make in the Leipzig community to facilitate these conversations/products?
- Value of Proposed Project
- What is the value of this project to your discipline?
- How will Study Abroad benefit?
- How will ACU students and faculty benefit?
- In what other ways will this project enhance ACU’s image and reputation?
- Are there any other expected long-term benefits of this project?
- Signature – Please sign the proposal.
- Supporting Data
Before the Leipzig Faculty Fellow Review Panel will consider an application, the Chair’s and Dean’s Review Forms must be in the Adams Center by the announced deadline.
In addition, the application must include the following:
- Current curriculum vita (including teaching, research, and service)
- Other supporting data (e.g., if you have or need them, letter[s] from institution[s] you will be working with in Leipzig, itinerary, etc. This is not required to have at the time of application, but if you do have them, please include them.)
The Chair and Dean Review form may be accessed via Google Docs at this link. Chairs and Deans should download the file as a Word document, input their feedback, then email it to Dr. Laura Carroll, the Chair of the Review Panel.
The Review Panel consists of the Director of Faculty Development, representative(s) of the Faculty Development Committee, the Executive Director of the Adams Center for Teaching and Learning, and the Executive Director of the Center for International Education.