This page quotes the Boyer report's examples of undergraduate education innovations. The language is taken directly from the full version of the report, which is available online: http://notes.cc.sunysb.edu/Pres/boyer.nsf
Carnegie-Mellon University
The Eberly Center at Carnegie-Mellon University, founded in 1982, conducts
programs to provide faculty and teaching assistants with an understanding
of the learning process and varied teaching strategies, and offers opportunities
for feedback on course design and implementation. Programs emphasize theory,
modeling, practice, and feedback and draw on cognitive science research;
for example, cross-disciplinary studies of expert-novice differences help
faculty understand the difficulties that students new to a subject might
have in setting up problems, transferring knowledge to new settings, and
interpreting complex patterns.
Duke University
First-semester Freshmen at Duke University may enroll in one of about
14 interdisciplinary, thematically-designed programs, in which they take
two Focus seminars, a writing course, and a non-Focus elective. Enrollment
in each is limited to 30; students in a program live together in a residence
hall and meet weekly for dinner.
University of Utah
Entering freshmen at the University of Utah enroll in a year-long seminar
led by one instructor and in quarterly Liberal Education Accelerated Program
(LEAP) courses linked to the themes of the seminars. Some of these courses
meet graduation requirements and some meet core or distribution requirements.
LEAP students also enroll in a first-quarter study and computer skills
course. Current and past LEAP students are members of the LEAP club, which
provides organized social and academic activities such as study groups
and guest speakers.
Stanford University
At Stanford University, sophomores who choose to enroll in a Sophomore
College program are housed together in student residences and enroll in
small-group classes of approximately 10, led by one professor and two upper-class
students. Participants earn 1 or 2 academic credits; examples of topics
include "Constitutionalism," "Comparative American Urban Cultures," and
"The Process of Discovery in Psychology." Workshops in use of university
libraries, research opportunities, and academic decision-making are held.
University of Iowa
Graduate instructors for required basic courses in reading, writing,
speaking, and research are recruited not only from the English and Communication
departments at the University of Iowa, but also from other humanities and
social science departments such as African-American World Studies, Classics,
History, and Philosophy. New teachers are provided with background material
in the summer before they begin teaching, attend a 3-day intensive workshop
before classes begin, and attend a weekly teaching colloquium, required
for new faculty as well, during the fall semester. All graduate instructors
are paired with faculty teaching advisors, with whom they share drafts
of teaching materials and assignments and review students' progress. The
department also assists the instructors in preparing a teaching portfolio.
Syracuse University
The Future Professoriate Project at Syracuse University, funded by
Pew Charitable Trusts, helps develop the teaching abilities of graduate
students. Faculty Teaching Mentors lead seminars on effective teaching
and serve as advisors; Teaching Associateships provide advanced teaching
assistants opportunities to teach classes on their own and to receive a
Certificate in University Teaching, awarded by the Graduate School to Teaching
Associates who compile a teaching portfolio, which includes observation
results as well as examples of syllabi, assignments, and examinations.
Syracuse University has also undertaken a program to redress a perceived overemphasis on research at the expense of teaching. The program has included conferences to enlist administrative support for change and a redefinition of "research and scholarship" by each division to include "the scholarship of teaching." A chancellor's fund was established to support the necessary changes, and a faculty grant program was created to reward teaching excellence and to provide funds for innovations.
University of Virginia
At the University of Virginia, a Teaching Resource Center was created
in 1990, funded primarily by reallocation. It offers evaluation, including
videotaped critiques, and teaching improvement workshops, especially for
teaching assistants and junior faculty. It also offers graduate courses
on effective teaching strategies for special subjects. Outstanding Teaching
Awards, five awards of $2,000 each, have been given annually since 1990-91
University of South Carolina
The Integrated Undergraduate-Faculty Development Program at the University
of South Carolina includes funding for sending professors to conferences
on pedagogy and for supporting curricular innovation; a mentoring program
funded by a Lilly Foundation grant assists untenured junior faculty members
by pairing them with experienced senior faculty.