Become a Fellow

This page serves as our annual call for proposals for AY 2024-25, we are soliciting one individual Mack Fellow and one Mack Fellow Team. The submission deadline has been extended to December 8, 2024. Please continue reading below for more details.

Purpose

The goal of the Mack Fellowship program is to promote and enhance the community of IU faculty engaged in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL). The Mack Fellows’ work is at the very core of the mission of Indiana University’s Mack Center for Inquiry on Teaching and Learning.

Each year the Mack Center selects fellows or fellowship teams to conduct ambitious research pertaining to teaching and learning, and to participate in our community of SoTL scholars. Fellows not only work on their own research with the mentorship of the community, but also have additional opportunities for collaborating on additional research projects.

Eligibility

Fellows must be full-time faculty (tenured, holding tenure track appointments, lecturers, clinical, or librarians with faculty rank). FACET members are eligible to become fellows, as are non-FACET members, who may be from any of IU’s campuses or all programs at FACET Fort Wayne. 

As a community, FACET is committed to social justice in and out of the classroom. In our selection process, we actively avoid discriminating based on characteristics that are fundamental to identity or conscience and embrace equity and inclusion.

Mack Fellow Projects

Projects should be innovative, well grounded in the emerging body of knowledge about SoTL and have clear goals to improve students’ learning or advance our understanding of the teaching and learning process. Dissemination through poster sessions and/or journal submission in an appropriate scholarly peer-reviewed journal are expectations of the fellowship. Further dissemination through other publications and through the successful implementation of new programs is encouraged.

To enhance work on the project, each fellow or fellowship team will receive feedback from a research mentor, one of the benefits of receiving a Mack Fellowship. Priority is given to projects that are at a stage that will benefit the most from this feedback. Mack Fellow mentors will either be someone the fellow already knows or works with, or someone identified by the Mack Center.

Fellowship Award & Responsibilities

Individual Mack Fellows receive $1,500 in initial research funds (after IRB approval) and $1,500 after they complete their project and submit a paper to a scholarly journal. Mack Fellow teams will receive $4,000 to distribute evenly to each member when all duties are fulfilled. Team proposals should identify the team members but need not identify a mentor. The mentor will receive the $1,000 stipend once the project is complete.

Responsibilities include giving a talk (generally a poster) at the FACET retreat approximately 14 months after project completion, and submitting a paper to a peer reviewed journal, usually two years after the award is announced. This is detailed in the award calendar below. We also expect that all Mack Fellows will participate in the community, mentor future Mack Fellows, review proposals, and support SoTL activities on their own campuses.

Mack Fellow Teams 

Mack Fellow Teams of 2-4 faculty members who consider themselves inexperienced in SoTL research will be partnered with a prior-year Mack Fellow as a mentor to complete a SoTL project. The work need not focus on a particular course or discipline; any organizing principle of interest to the team is great. 

Proposal Format and Review

Proposals are relatively brief. We ask that applicants submit no more than 1,500 words for the main body. A successful proposal should indicate the importance of the research issues that the applicant wishes to study as well as placing the research within the existing body of literature. While preliminary results may be discussed, they are not required, and applicants new to SoTL are strongly encouraged. As described in the application calendar below, some proposals may be given feedback and an opportunity to resubmit by a secondary deadline.

Proposal Outline

1. Research question(s)
2. Plan/timeline
3. Proposed fellow contact information and curriculum vitae
4. Two to three letters of support for the project

Proposals are reviewed for innovation and the significance of the work, and planned dissemination of results. Several successful proposals are available on the Mack Center website, though the proposal format has changed. You can also get great advice from former Mack Fellows. There are former Mack Fellows on every campus.

A panel of approximately four faculty members with SoTL experience will review the proposals. Former Fellows generally comprise some, though not all, of the panel. The timeline occurs over approximately two academic years as follows:

IRB Approval

By their nature, most SoTL projects will need IRB approval. Some projects may have prior approval, but many will require a new IRB submission. The fellow or fellowship team is responsible for submitting the project to their campus review board. Please send a copy of IRB approval to the FACET office, facet@iu.edu, once it is attained. The first stipend will be released when proof of IRB approval has been received.