Wimmer Faculty Fellowship for the Development of Teaching

To encourage and foster the professional development of junior faculty as educators.

These fellowships of $3,000 each can be used to help junior faculty members improve the quality of their teaching and learning of CMU students by revising an existing course through:

• incorporating instructional strategies (e.g., active learning, group work, peer evaluation, "flipping" the classroom);
• implementing educational technologies (e.g., collaboration tools, instructional videos);
• creating instructional materials (e.g., assignments, case studies, classroom activities, performance rubrics);
• collecting and analyzing data on student learning to iteratively improve course design (e.g., via learning analytics, pre/post-tests, analyses of student work, student surveys or focus groups); and/or
• integrating new content (e.g., global or multicultural perspectives, ethics, sustainability, interdisciplinarity - simply updating disciplinary content alone is not sufficient).

The above list is not exhaustive; we encourage interested colleagues to contact us to discuss potential ideas!

Who is eligible?

Junior faculty members with a continuing appointment (i.e., teaching, tenure, research, or library track instructors) teaching at CMU who have five or fewer years of teaching experience at the university level, either at Carnegie Mellon or elsewhere. Proposals must seek to enhance CMU students’ learning. Projects targeting undergraduate and/or graduate students are welcome. Proposed courses must be taught in AY 2025-26 and affiliated with CMU academic programs.

Funding

The maximum funding period is one year (i.e., May 2025 - May 2026). Fellowship awards may be used as faculty stipend (taxable) or to directly support project costs.

Relevant dates

Applications due Tuesday, March 11, 2025, 11:59pm.

Expectations for Wimmer Faculty Fellows

To ensure that participants make demonstrable progress toward their proposed goals, we require that you:

• meet regularly with Eberly consultants who will provide support, guidance and feedback;
• participate in Wimmer Course Incubator in May 2025 (date TBD, based on fellows’ schedules);
• produce and share materials (e.g., assignments, projects, classroom activities, performance rubrics, instructional units) for a course you will be teaching;
• receive a confidential Early Course Feedback Focus Group service from the Eberly Center during the semester the course is offered;
• submit a short (2-page) reflection on what you have done and its impact on your teaching and student learning or engagement;
• collect data on learning outcomes to inform future course iterations, with the full support of the Eberly Center staff; and
• present your project at a future CMU Teaching & Learning Summit or Spotlight event.

Application Process

The request for proposals for the 2025-2026 Academic Year is available here. The deadline for applications is March 11, 2025, 11:59pm. 

Any questions about the program may be directed to eberly-assist@andrew.cmu.edu.

Applicants may request a consultation with an Eberly colleague on their project idea and evaluation plan prior to submitting a proposal. Please request a consultation at least one week prior to the submission deadline.

We are pleased to announce the newest Wimmer Faculty Fellows. These fellowships are made possible by a grant from the Wimmer Family Foundation and are designed for junior faculty members interested in enhancing their teaching through concentrated work designing or re-designing a course, innovating new materials, or exploring a new pedagogical approach. Fellows work in close collaboration with Eberly Center colleagues and receive a stipend to acknowledge the work it takes to improve one's effectiveness as an educator. 

Noha Abdelghany
Assistant Teaching Professor, Mathematical Sciences

Noha is teaching 21-102: Exploring Modern Mathematics, a logic and mathematical reasoning course for undergraduate non-majors. Her project focuses on adapting her teaching methods to help students build math skills that they can carry forward in their different disciplines. Specifically, she will be redesigning class sessions to infuse more active learning and practice opportunities. Noha will also be working with her Eberly team to better design and communicate expectations for her teaching assistants so students receive consistent and effective instruction and assistance.

Haeyoung Kim
Assistant Professor, Design

Haeyoung is designing a new course in the School of Design for undergraduate and graduate students. Her course will focus on the making process in design, including prototyping, and testing. Her goal is to empower students to embrace prototyping from the outset of the design process, enabling them to confidently explore without fear of failure. For her Wimmer project, she plans to design a series of interactive workshops where students get practice and immediate feedback on their designs, and aims to assess student attitudes, comfort, and perceptions through surveys at the beginning and end of the course.

Kwan Lee
Instructor, CMU Africa

Kwan is revising his junior-level core course, “Advanced Academic Skills for Engineers,” at CMU-Africa to enhance students' foundational skills through a workshop-style approach. Traditional lectures will be replaced with task-based activities and peer learning sessions that emphasize real-time feedback and skill practice. This method aims to foster a mindset shift from assignment completion to skill acquisition. The redesigned course will include systematic workshops on presentation design, research gap identification, and writing problem statements, among others. Collaborating with the Eberly Center, Kwan aims to evaluate the course's effectiveness and gather data to inform future curriculum design.

Adviti Naik
Assistant Teaching Professor, Biological Sciences

Adviti is designing 03-410: Precision Medicine, a new course for upper-level undergraduate students in Biological Sciences at CMU-Qatar. As part of her Wimmer project, Adviti will be creating resources, including videos, to flip her course and developing instructional strategies for case-based learning. In the course, students will discuss, evaluate, and interpret findings from clinical trials in personalized medicine. Her goal is to equip students with skills to apply their foundational knowledge of biology to real-world applications in the health and pharmaceutical sectors.