This year's Departmental Award for Excellence and Innovation in Undergraduate Teaching is given to the Undergraduate Technology Apprentice Program, a project of the College of Chemical and Life Sciences, the College of Arts and Humanities, and the Office of Information Technology.

The Undergraduate Technology Apprentice Program (UTAP) receives the Departmental Excellence Award in recognition of its outstanding support of collaboration between faculty and undergraduate students and its exemplary contribution to improved teaching and learning across disciplines.

After completing a course in technology and pedagogy, the program’s undergraduate apprentices are paired with individual faculty members seeking innovative uses of technology in their classes. Approximately seventy apprentices have helped faculty implement pedagogically effective technologies in at least thirty courses in the College of Chemical and Life Sciences and the College of Arts and Humanities. Apprentices learn how to use and how to share new technologies, how courses are designed, and how faculty approach teaching. Faculty paired with apprentices learn ways to integrate new technologies in classes, share ideas about teaching with students, and benefit from valuable and personal technical support. The thousands of students who have enrolled in those faculty members’ courses have enjoyed the enhanced teaching afforded by UTAP.

UTAP will receive $5000.00 from Undergraduate Studies for further enhancement of undergraduate education. In addition, the program’s name will be added to the Departmental Excellence and Innovations in Undergraduate Teaching Award plaque, which will be displayed by UTAP until May of 2007.

Pictured (l-r) with Associate Provost for Academic Affairs and Dean for Undergraduate Studies Donna Hamilton: Award recipients Mike Landavere, Director of Information Technology, College of Chemical and Life Sciences; Catherine Hays Zabriskie, Associate Director of Academic Technology, College of Arts and Humanities; and Deb Mateik, Instructional Designer, Academic Support, Office of Information Technology.