Faculty and Staff Resources

Professor John Lambropoulos received the University’s Goergen Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching.
John Lambropoulos, professor and former chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, received the University’s Goergen Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. “The most challenging part of teaching is to make sure nobody gets left behind,” he says.

How can we at the Hajim School best combine our experience with online learning and technology with the experiential, in-person hands-on education that is at the core of the University of Rochester experience? And how do we do so in ways that support students coming from diverse backgrounds?

We are fortunate to have remarkably talented faculty and staff members whose creative ideas will be an essential part of meeting this challenge.

Here are resources to foster and support innovative teaching ideas from faculty and staff.

Instructional Grants

The following grants are available through the Hajim School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

Wadsworth C. Sykes Faculty Engineering Award

Sykes grants fund faculty led projects for the development of innovative curricular courses and programs for engineering students, with particular emphasis on the first- and second-year student programs. Proposals must include at least one Hajim faculty member (tenure or instructional track). Multiple awards, ranging from $ 2,500 to $ 30,000, are made each year. A request for proposals is circulated during spring semester for development of curriculum for the following academic year. Applications are made using an online form.

Examples of recent Sykes-funded projects include:

  • A new lab experiment and support group projects focused on solar heating as part of CHE 150: Introduction to Sustainable Energy, by Marc Porosoff, assistant professor of chemical engineering, and two of his teaching assistants.
  • A diversity and inclusion curriculum for BME 101: Introduction to Biomedical Engineering, by Kanika Vats, assistant professor, and Danielle Daniels, director of diversity in STEM at the Kearns Center.
  • Adapting ME 160, an introductory course on engineering computation, to increase active learning and improve student learning specifically around the programming basics, by Laura Slane, assistant professor of mechanical engineering.
  • A new undergraduate course titled “Design for Future Reality” that provides undergraduates the concept, principles, methods, and special topics of AR/VR and related technologies, by Zhen Bai, assistant professor of computer science.

Hajim Instructional Conference and Travel (HICAT)

HICAT grants provide support for faculty and staff to attend professional conferences with the goals of promoting professional development and stimulating curricular innovation. Conferences sponsored by any professional organization are eligible (e.g. ASEE, IEEE, AICHE), however the grantee’s attendance should have a primarily educational focus and cannot be based on externally funded work (e.g. a research grant). Applications are made using an online form and may be submitted at any time.

For additional information on the Sykes and HICAT grants, please contact Associate Dean Paul Funkenbusch at pfunken2@ur.rochester.edu.

Additional Resources

AS&E Teaching Center

The Teaching Center provides consultations, classroom observation, discussion forums, and topical workshops, plus:

  • Guidance in teaching students with disabilities, and designing, teaching, and evaluating a course
  • Help with teaching online

AS&E Faculty Resources Page

Provides information and resources for teaching, advising, research and diversity for all Arts, Sciences, and Engineering faculty.