Brief overview
To encourage faculty to take courses outside of their discipline and facilitate connections among the curricula at Harvey Mudd College, the Teaching and Learning Committee will offer up to four stipends of $1000 plus funding for textbooks (of up to $150) for faculty who wish to audit a colleague's course. This program is funded through Spring of 2006.

A one-paragraph proposal including the course to be audited, agreement from the instructor, and the reason for the request should be sent to the chair of the TLC (in 2004-05: orwin@hmc.edu) by July 1 (for fall) or Jan. 1 (for spring). Award notification will be made at least two weeks before the semester begins.

Complete Call for Proposals and Participation Details
The Claremont Colleges provide a wealth of opportunities for HMC faculty to develop their careers by attending courses in other departments and at other campuses. We would like to encourage this course attendance because it provides opportunities for faculty to expand their knowledge, repertoire of pedagogical approaches, and modes of creative expression and communication. The TLC has obtained funds from the Mellon Foundation to support Interdisciplinary Course Audits by providing stipends of $1000 to faculty who audit an entire course.

The focus of this program is to fund interdisciplinary audits, such as audits of core courses, technical/ humanities and social sciences interchange, audits of courses at Scripps College courses to promote cross-institutional interactions, and audits of biology courses for faculty unfamiliar with this discipline.

HMC faculty members must make a reasonable effort to attend all of the class periods of the course they audit in order to be awarded the stipend. Funds will also be provided for purchase of a text book or supplies, and for the auditor and host to interact informally over lunch during the semester. Upon completion of the course, the HMC faculty member will submit an evaluation of the experience. This written evaluation will address how the visitation experience has affected or will affect the participant's own courses and whether the participant was able to provide feedback to the course instructor about connections to the participant's discipline. Once a year the TLC will host a lunch discussion of the program and request the award recipients to discuss their experiences and present at least one new curricular or contextual piece of a course that arose from the experience.

Proposal format
The proposal will consist of one or two paragraphs indicating why the course was selected, and the learning objectives of the auditing faculty member. Faculty will include with their proposals a letter of consent from the primary instructor of the course they wish to audit.

Schedule
Proposals for each term's classes should be submitted to the chair of the Teaching and Learning Committee by July 1 (for fall) or Jan. 1 (for spring). As of 2004-05, please mail proposals to Liz Orwin (orwin@hmc.edu). The TLC will review proposals and notify award recipients at least a two before classes begin.

This program will run each semester from Spring 2004 through Fall 2006, with an average of 4 audits being funded each semester.

The full text of the proposal the TLC submitted to the Mellon Foundation can be downloaded here.