News

Press Release

New York, NY (June 13, 2006) - The Teagle Foundation today announced 14 new grants totaling over $2.5 million to fund collaborative projects involving over 50 colleges, universities and educational institutions. The funding will extend the Foundation's Outcomes and Assessment initiative, which explores the potential of faculty-led value-added assessment, and its Fresh Thinking initiative, which supports Working Groups intended to bring new ideas to the liberal arts.

"Our goal at the Teagle Foundation is to ensure that students obtaining a liberal arts education experience the most intellectually stimulating curricula possible," said W. Robert Connor, president of the Teagle Foundation. "Our Outcomes and Assessment initiative will generate knowledge about how students learn, and so help faculty become better teachers. In addition, this round of Fresh Thinking grants seeks to explore how the liberal arts can help students examine and deal with 'Big Questions' of meaning and value."

Over the last two years, the Teagle Foundation has made over $5.6 million in grants through its Outcomes and Assessment initiative and over $1.9 million through its Fresh Thinking initiative. Results from Teagle's fall 2004 Forum and Working Group grants will be available in the fall of 2006.

Outcomes and Assessment
The following collaboratives will each receive funding for up to three years unless otherwise noted (schools administering the grants are listed in bold):

Agnes Scott College -- $300,000
Converse College, University of North Carolina - Asheville, Wofford College, Improving and Assessing Integrative Learning Experiences

Beloit College -- $297,109
Knox College, Monmouth College, and Ripon College, Assessing the Value Added to Liberal Education by Academic Majors

The College of Wooster -- $297,353
Denison University, Kenyon College, Oberlin College, Ohio Wesleyan University, Creativity and Critical Thinking: Assessing the Foundation of a Liberal Arts Education

Moravian College -- $300,000
Drew University, Muhlenberg College, Roanoke College, Susquehanna University, Value-Added Assessment of Programs of Intense Student-Faculty Interaction: Developing Intentional Learners

Reed College -- $292,218
Lewis & Clark College, Whitman College, Assessing Classmate Peer Effects on Student Learning: Statistical and Qualitative Evidence for Gateway Courses at Three Liberal Arts Colleges (over 30 months)

Wabash College (Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts) $300,000
Leveraging Institutional Success to Strengthen Assessment at Liberal Arts Colleges

Vanderbilt University (Curb Center for Art, Enterprise and Public Policy) $25,000
Creativity, the Arts, and Higher Education: Exploring How the Arts Stimulate Creativity, Engagement, and Learning on College Campuses (over 12 months)

Fresh Thinking - "Big Questions" Working Groups
The following working groups will each receive funding to be used for up to two years (schools administering the grants are listed in bold):

Graduate Theological Union -- $100,000
American Baptist Seminary of the West, Church Divinity School of the Pacific, Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology, Franciscan School of Theology, Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley, Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, Pacific School of Religion, San Francisco Theological Seminary, Starr King School for the Ministry, University of California at Berkeley, Engaging Meaning through Mentorship: Strengthening Post-Secondary Liberal Education through Vocation-Based Mentoring of Future Faculty

Hampshire College -- $100,000
Berea College, Cornell College, Smith College, Warren Wilson College, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, The Liberal Arts as Preparation for a Life of Work

National Humanities Center -- $90,251
Contemporary Challenges to the Concept of the Human (Collaborators TBD)

Phi Beta Kappa -- $100,000
Deliberation about Things that Matter (Collaborators TBD)

The University of Chicago -- $100,000
Macalester College, Midwest Faculty Seminar, What can I do to right the wrongs of the world?

University of Richmond -- $100,000
Associated Colleges of the South, Virginia Foundation for Independent Colleges, historically black colleges and universities in Virginia, The Pedagogy of Belief and Doubt

Vassar College -- $99,377
Bucknell University, Macalester College, Williams College, On Secularity and Liberal Education

Please visit www.teaglefoundation.org to read detailed descriptions for these projects as well as for more information on the Foundation and all of its programs.

About the Teagle Foundation
The Teagle Foundation is committed to providing intellectual and financial leadership in the effort to promote and strengthen liberal education.