Nord Grants support UCITE’s goal of empowering people to learn through the development of innovative faculty teaching and research projects that directly benefit student learning. Projects may be created by individual faculty members or in collaboration with others, including members of educational and cultural institutions external to CWRU.
The Nord Family Foundation is a successor to a charitable trust established in 1952 by the entrepreneur and industrialist Walter G. Nord. Mr. Nord and his family believed that it was both responsible and prudent for a business to invest in the community it served. Two of Walter's children, Evan and Eric Nord, were early donors to UCITE, and sponsored the Nord Grant program promoting faculty innovation in teaching.
Nord Grants may of particular interest to those who wish to:
- Explore innovative teaching and learning strategies or projects
- Explore creative teaching ideas to support learning in remote and hybrid class settings
- Integrate Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Internationalization work into course curricula
- Innovate instructional techniques through the application of teaching and learning technology
- Develop Inter- and Trans-disciplinary collaborations to create student learning opportunities beyond the classroom environment
- Use academic data to understand and improve student learning
- Evaluate the impact of innovative teaching strategies on student learning
Funding
- Nord Grants have no fixed financial parameters. Project support is commensurate with provided justification. Priority is given to faculty who have not previously been awarded a Nord Grant.
- Awards are typically given twice yearly, with starting dates of January 30 (Winter awards) and July 30 (Summer awards).
- Winter awards are provided for 1.5 fiscal years (e.g., January 2025-May 2026)
- Summer awards are provided for 1 fiscal year (e.g., July 2025-May 2026)
Eligibility
Full-time CWRU teaching faculty are eligible to apply for a Nord Grant. Visiting faculty, part-time faculty, SAGES Fellows, and graduate students may collaborate as team members with a full-time faculty member for grant proposals (the team leader must be full-time faculty).
3-Step Application Procedure
Fellowship applications consist of three steps:
1. Conference with UCITE Director Matthew Garrett to review a drafted proposal
2. Provide your Department Chair/Dean with a Chair Evaluation Form
3. Complete online contact and summary information through the Nord Grant Application Form which will request:
- Contact information
- De-identified proposal forms
- letters of support (see details below)
Proposal conferences with the UCITE Director must be completed prior to submitting online proposals.
Online Nord Grant application materials for the 2025 Winter cycle must be received by Wednesday, November 6, 2024.
Applicants will receive notification of Nord Grant award status no later than December 13, 2024
Step 1: Project Development and Initial Review with UCITE Director
Submit a draft PDF copy of your completed Project Description form to UCITE (ucite@case.edu) and arrange for a review meeting to discuss the proposal. Please call the UCITE office if you prefer to schedule with us over the phone (216.368.1224). You may access the Nord Application Template using this link. A review of drafted proposals may help ensure that all areas of the project description are addressed completely. Proposal conferences must take place prior to submitting online proposals, and no later than Friday, November 1, 2024 for the Winter award cycle.
Step 2 (NEW FOR 2024-25): Chairperson Evaluation Form
Send your complete proposal along with the Chairperson Evaluation Form to your primary department chair/program director/dean. If co-applicants from multiple departments are involved, only the lead applicant needs to obtain a completed chairperson evaluation form. It is the responsibility of the lead applicant to ensure that their chairperson completes this form.
The chairperson should evaluate the proposal, complete the fillable pdf form, and then forward the Chairperson Evaluation Form to ucite@case.edu. These forms must be received by the submission deadline.
Step 3: Applicants should proceed with online submission of Nord Grant application materials through this Qualtrics link by Wednesday, November 6, 2024.
Faculty Contact and Project Summary Information
Complete an online form that provides UCITE with necessary contact and summative information. Using this form, applicants will upload a completed project description form and Letter(s) of support:
Project Description Form
Submit your completed Project Description Form on the deadline date. The information in your project description should be concise and clear, and should address each of the prompts listed. You may access the Nord Application Template using this link.
The review committee will read applications as anonymous submissions. Please do not put your name anywhere in the text of your project description. You may include other details, such as your department and course titles. If you have questions about how to ensure anonymity, please contact our office.
While each proposal will be different, each applicant must address the following five areas, using the form:
- NEW: Project Abstract: In 250 words or less, provide an overview/abstract of your project with enough detail for a general audience (i.e., outside of your discipline) to read it. Include a purpose statement that describes how your project will improve student learning. State how Nord Grant funding will be used to achieve project goals. This overview will be made public on the UCITE website if your project is funded.
- Project Nature and Goals: How will your project produce deeper student learning through more impactful teaching? Clearly identify your project objectives (i.e., the items that you will measure to document project success). What scholarship about teaching and learning does your project engage with? What experiential or service learning opportunities may be possible through your project? What campus resources might you engage to accomplish your goals (e.g., [U]Tech, KSL)? How does your project align with the University priorities of: 1) elevating academic excellence, 2) expanding research enterprise, or 3) enhancing community engagement and impact? If your proposal aligns more closely with departmental learning outcomes, provide specific details about those outcomes and how your project will help accomplish those goals.
- Professional Impact: What is the relationship between your project and your teaching and research responsibilities at CWRU? Will your project have short-term or long-term impact on teaching and learning? How do you plan to maximize the number of students that may benefit from involvement in this project?
- Evidence of Student Learning: What evidence will you seek to collect and analyze to determine how well or to what extent project goals were achieved? Clearly reiterate your project objectives and provide specific assessments you plan to use for each objective to document project success. How will you measure evidence of student learning? Be sure to incorporate measurement tools beyond student perception surveys.
- Budget and Timeline: How will Nord Grant funds be used to support the project – for materials/equipment, for student stipends, or for something else? What support, if any, will the project receive from other sources, including on-campus (e.g. department funds) or beyond-campus (e.g. discipline-specific awards) funds? Given that funds are available for approximately one fiscal year, what is the proposed timeline for the project? Is this a new project or is the work already underway? List expenses in priority order from most important to least important.
NOTE: If Nord funding will be used for faculty salary, obtain confirmation from your Dean's office as to the salary amount, including fringe. You may forward confirmation to ucite@case.edu.
Additional Letter(s) of Support (optional)
Documentation of support is requested, as appropriate, from university resources. These types of email correspondence or more formal letters are necessary to acknowledge collaborative support of your proposal from other units within the university. For example, if you are planning a new interdisciplinary project, you will need to include communication from the other department(s) involved, demonstrating support for your proposal.
PUBLIC DISCLOSURE REQUIREMENTS
Proposals (including budget) will be publicly accessible. Accepting an award means the proposer agrees, unless explicitly requested otherwise.
Budget
Budgets must conform with the rules of the proposer's department and school, as well as those of the university. Grant applicants must check with appropriate entities to be sure their items meet such criteria before submitting the budget. UCITE approves a proposal on the basis of its appropriateness. UCITE approval does not imply conformance to university rules (such as the need to obtain IRB approval); the proposal author is responsible for checking and complying with such rules. The budget should list the titles and amounts of any prior Nord Grants received by the requester. Support for the budget, including the total funding amount, should be included in the letter from the department chair (or other appropriate supervisory authority in schools where there is not a department structure).
FYI: Public Disclosure
- Proposals (including budget) will be publicly accessible. Accepting an award means the proposer agrees, unless explicitly requested otherwise.
- Nord Grant recipients will collaborate with UCITE in publicizing their project to the CWRU community through our website and other appropriate venues.
Reporting
- Within two months after the award period ends, the grant recipient must file a report with UCITE (approximately 300 words) that contains project accomplishments, including impact on student learning. The report will be published in UCITE’s annual report.
- Recipients must also file a brief summary of budget expenditures, to be kept on file.
Presentation
At the end of each academic year, Nord Grant recipients will give a short public presentation at the UCITE Teaching & Learning Colloquium.
Publicity and Acknowledgements
- Any resulting publications and presentations should acknowledge the support of UCITE. For example, “The author of this publication received financial support from a CWRU UCITE Nord Grant for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.”
- Please submit electronic copies of any publications.
- Nord Grant recipients may be invited to record brief comments about their project for the UCITE website or other university publicity purposes.
Nord Grants Awarded
The following faculty were awarded grants to fund the listed proposals.
Investigator | Department | Award | Proposal |
---|---|---|---|
Elias Ali | Civil Engineering | $6,850 | Fostering Active Learning in Core Engineering |
Susan Burden-Gulley & Kathleen Hershberger | Biology | $7,580 | An emphasis on student engagement using a flipped approach and applied learning in a large enrollment introductory biology course |
Cassi Pittman Claytor | Sociology | $10,000 | Building Awareness and Inspiring Action: Race, Climate Change and Environmental Justice |
Elliot Gardner | Biology | $9,978 | Collections- and field-based learning in plant sciences |
Sara Kraus | School of Medicine | $8,150 | A Patient Centered Approach to Problem Based Learning: Bringing Real Patient Stories to the Forefront of Physician Assistant Education |
Fey Parrill | Cognitive Science | $5,010 | We Need to Get Outside! Exploring Mind, Body, Community Connections through Outdoor Education |
Soumya Ray | Computer and Data Sciences | $10,000 | Advancing Inclusion, Internationalization, Diversity and Equity in the Computer and Data Science Curriculum |
Rekha Srinivasan | Chemistry | $7,000 | Designing a Biochemistry Laboratory Based On Current Research |
Investigator | Department | Award | Proposal |
---|---|---|---|
Marjorie Edguer | Social Work | $9,200 |
Holistic Assessment of Specialized Competencies |
Brian Gran | Sociology | $14,750 | Gaming the Gender Landscape: Teaching Justice to Diverse Audiences |
Kathleen Harper & Kurt Rhoads | Engineering | $16,100 | Inverting Lectures in ENGR 130 |
Paul Iversen |
Classics | $10,700 | CLSC 318/418 (Archaeological & Epigraphical Field School): The Lechaion Harbor & Land Settlement Project |
Deborah Lindell | Nursing | $12,000 | Curriculum Transformation at the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing |
Mafu Mhlambululi | Physics | $8,200 | Active Learning and Applied Critical Thinking in General Physics |
Alessandra Parry |
Department of Modern Languages and Literatures |
$12,400 | Teaching Spanish as a Heritage Language |
Charlotte Sanpere |
Department of Modern Languages and Literatures |
$4,800 | Medical French Program in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures |
Elizabeth Sell | Mathematics, Applied Mathematics, and Statistics | $12,900 | Active Learning in Multivariable Calculus |
Investigator | Department | Award | Proposal |
---|---|---|---|
Sarah Bagby | Biology | $7,674 | Microbial Competition, Human Collaboration: Teaching Interdisciplinary Team Science through Hands-On Analysis of Microbial Community Dynamics |
Gurkan Bebek | Nutrition | $8,354 | Teaching Bioinformatics with LEGO Serious Play |
Marjorie Edguer | MSASS | $4,175 | Mindfulness Matters Revisited |
Ellen Van Oosten | Organizational Behavior | $16,000 | Navigating Differences in Negotiation Conflict through Team Coaching |
Andrew Rollins | Biomedical Engineering | $6,000 | Scaling up ENGR 395: Community-Engaged, Interdisciplinary Team-Based Design Projects |
Christopher Wirth; Erika Weliczko | Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering | $9,000 | Real World Energy Systems Analysis at CWRU to Deepen Student Learning |
Investigator | Department | Award | Proposal |
---|---|---|---|
Michael Folise | Law | $3,700 | Intellectual Property Venture Clinic (IPVC Instructor Manual) |
Chris Mihos | Astronomy | $6,144 | Data Science Modules for Astronomy Education |
Rekha Srinivasan | Chemistry | $5,,000 | Chemistry, Culture, and Cuisine: A Spicy Journey |
Robert Ward | Biology | $6182 | Pilot Redesign of Introductory Biology Laboratory as a Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE) |
Investigator | Department | Award | Proposal |
---|---|---|---|
Mary Assad | English | $3,000 | Think Like an Artist: Engaging in Multimodal Communication |
Christine Duval | Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering | $3,800 | Girl Scouts of Northeast Ohio Get to Know Nuclear |
Hossein Miri Lavasani | Electrical, Computer, and Systems Engineering | $6,900 | Smart, Connected, Multifuctional Sensors |
Michael Martens | Physics | $4,282 | A Physics Playground |
Chris Bohan | Theater | $4,215 | llumination Station |
Marjorie Edguer | MSASS | $10,000 | Mindfulness Matters |
Elina Gertsman | Art History and Art | $4,000 | The Breath of All That Lives: Medieval Jewish Art |
Kenneth Loparo | Electrical, Computer, and Systems Engineering | $6,750 | Enabling Dual-Delivery of Hardware-based Laboratory Courses |
Alp Sehirlioglu | Materials Science and Engineering | $3,360 | Breadth of Engineering in Engineering Core Level |
Rekha Srinivasan | Chemistry | $3,000 | Active Learning in Remote Learning Environment |
Investigator | Department | Proposal |
---|---|---|
Drew Meyer | Chemistry | Problem Solving in Chemistry |
Rekha Srinivasan | Chemistry | POGIL for Biochemistry |
Heather Hurwitz | Sociology | Teaching Sociology to Prepare Students for the MCAT and Beyond |
Brian Gran | Sociology | The Human Right to Science |
Joy Bostic | Religion | The use of Hybrid Technology Projects in the course Introduction to Africana Studies |
Thiago Porto | Dentistry | The Practical Application of Adhesive Dentistry |
Lakshmi Balasubramanyan | Weatherhead |
FinTech as EdTech: Modernizing the Curriculum Content of Banking and Financial Intermediation to Enhance Contextual Learning |
Investigator |
Department | Proposal |
---|---|---|
Longhua Zhao | Math |
Redesigning and Enhancing Math 432 |
Lisa Koops | Music | Popular Music in Education |
Narcisz Fejes | SAGES | Food Programming and Symposium |
Investigator | Department | Proposal |
---|---|---|
Lauren Calandruccio | Psychological Sciences and Communication Sciences | Using the Immersive Hearing Loss and Prosthesis Simulator (i-HeLPS) to Improve Learning in Communication Sciences |
Vincent Graziano | Math | Developing Software to Increase Student Engagement in Mathematics |
Kurt Koenigsberger | English | Active Learning in the Book Arts and Print Culture |
James Overholser |
Psychology |
Teaching Psychological Topics Through Classroom Discussion, Games and Activities |
Alp Sehirlioglu |
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science |
Introduction of Holographic Teaching in Materials Science |
Rekha Srinivasan | Chemistry |
Novel Hierarchical approach to flipped class-room involving graduate and undergraduate teaching assistants with peer-peer learning-Phase II |
Horst von Recum | Biomedical Engineering |
Evaluating the effect of academic technology on student learning outcomes |
Investigator | Department | Proposal |
---|---|---|
Lauren Calandruccio | Psychological Sciences and Communication Sciences | Enhancing Classroom Education for Undergraduate Students in Communication Sciences |
Vincent Graziano | Mathematics and Applied Statistics | Streamlining Lectures for Undergraduate Students in Mathematics |
Paul Iversen | Classics | Experiential Learning in Field Archaeology and Epigraphy |
Amy Przeworski, Marc Buchner | Psychological Sciences | Comparing Augmented Reality vs Virtual Reality in Psychological Sciences Research |
David Preston | Neurology | Neuroimaging in Neurology |
Silvia Saccon | Mathematics and Applied Statistics |
Implementing Inquiry-Orientated Curricula for Advanced Mathematics |
Investigator | Department | Proposal |
---|---|---|
Megan Holmes and Zoe Breen Wood | MSASS |
Evaluating the effect of academic technology on student learning outcomes |
Cheryl Killion | Nursing | Attend a seminar on teaching using the case method |
Scott Simpson | Anatomy | Developing a 3D atlas of human and primate skeletal materials |
Investigator | Department | Proposal |
---|---|---|
Chris Fietkiewicz | Electrical Engineering and Computer Science |
Multiplayer Quiz System for Self-Assessment |
Masahiro Heima | Dentistry | Behavioral Science Course in Dental Fear and Anxiety |
Daniel Lacks | Chemical Engineering | International Engineering Entrepreneurship Course Offering in Developing Countries |
Corbin Covault | Physics | Towards A Flipped Classroom for Introductory Physics |
David Hammack | History | U.S. History for International Students |
Mingguo Hong | Electrical Engineering and Computer Science | Software for Power Systems Analysis |
Barbara Kuemerle | Biology | A Longitudinal Study to Assess LearningRetention |
Rekha Srinivasan | Chemistry | Active Learning in Organic Chemistry |
Nicole Steinmetz | Biomedical Engineering | Nanoman II |
Investigator | Department | Proposal |
---|---|---|
Nicole Steinmetz | Biomedical Engineering | Nanoman |
Jing Li | Electrical Engineering and Computer Science | App Development for iOS |
Lisa Koops | Music | Center in Music and Teaching |
Susan Case | Political Science | Outcome Learning Assessment, SAGES |
Tatiana Zilotina | Modern Languages and Literature | Russian for Heritage Speakers |
Jeffrey Ullom | Theater | Musical Theater, SAGES |
John Fredieu | Anatomy | 3-D Modeling of Anatomical Structures |
Noelle Giuffrida | Art History | Issues in the Arts of China: Chinese Contemporary Art |
Charles Tannenbaum | Molecular Medicine | Initiation of a Laboratory Component for Molecular Methods and Tools |
Todd Oakley | Cognitive Science | Autism, Intersubjectivity & Language |
Peter Zimmerman | International Health, Genetics and Biology | Whole Genome Sequencing and Bioinformatic Analyses to Undergraduate Students |
Investigator | Department | Proposal |
---|---|---|
Kelly McMann | Political Science | Understanding Democratization through Original Data Analysis |
Peter Yang | Modern Languages and Literature | Independent Study in Chinese (CHIN 399) |
T. J. McCallum | Psychological Sciences | Aging and Functional Change |
Michael Pollino | Psychological Sciences | Experiential Learning of Structural Systems for Undergraduate Engineering Students |
Investigator | Department | Proposal |
---|---|---|
Linda Ehrlich | Modern Languages and Literature | Topics in World Literature (WLIT) 390: ShadowPlay (An Interdisciplinary course) |
John Fredieu | Anatomy | Specimen Conservation for Anatomy 491 |
Dan Lacks | Chemical Engineering | ENGR 225B: "Thermodynamics, Fluid Dynamics, Heat and Mass Transfer (in Botswana)" |
Jenifer Neils | Art History | Parthenon Frieze Video Project |
Celeste Alfes | Nursing | Leadership Development Program for Simulation Educators |
Ricardo Apostol | Classics | Greece Classics Seminar, American School of Classical Studies |
Patrizia Bonaventura | Psychology | Instrumental Measurements in Speech Science |
Mary Grimm | English | ENGL 376 Studies in Genre: Urban Fantasy |
Dan Lacks | Chemical Engineering | Collaboration with the University of Dakar, Senegal |
Investigator | Department | Proposal |
---|---|---|
Darin Croft | Anatomy | Creating a guide to skull identification of the main mammal groups |
Paul Iversen | Classics | Experiential learning course on Landscape Archaeology and Epigraphy |
Carol Savrin | Nursing | Study of clicker effectiveness in nursing school courses |
Robert Spadoni | English | Materials to develop a course and text on early horror films |
Gary Wnek | Biomedical Engineering | Support for course in biomedical design |