The Visiting Faculty Fellows Program

By Cynthia Rutz, Director of Faculty Development, CITAL 

Each year CITAL’s Visiting Faculty Fellows Program offers our visiting faculty a chance to enhance their CV by getting to know the work of one department or office on campus. We hope that this fellowship will give them a leg up, whether their future career path is here or elsewhere.  Each fellow gets a stipend of $500 to work for no more than two hours per week in a single area for the entire spring semester. The Fellows for Spring 2025 are:

Christopher Phillips (Geography & Meteorology) 

Christopher will be working on various projects for the Archives of the Christopher Center Library.  He will work with Rebecca Ostoyich, Coordinator of Archives & Special Collections and Hanna Hartman, Archives & Special Collections Specialist. 

Paul Olander (Political Science) 

Paul will be working in the Access and Accommodations Resource Center (AARC) with AARC Director Christina Hearne and Coordinator Donelle Henderlong.  He will be undertaking some necessary research for the Center on how other campuses are helping their neurodivergent students to succeed.

Our two Visiting Faculty Fellows from last year commented on their experiences as follows:

Jonah Elrod (Music):

This year I worked under Brooke Regier as a writing consultant at the Writing Center. I provided one hour per week for consultations, spent another 30–60 minutes per week writing post-consultation reports, and attended all Writing Center staff meetings once every 2-3 weeks. Attending the meetings was very helpful for me to understand the mission and goals of the Writing Center, and to learn from other consultants. As a result, I have become a strong advocate for having a Writing Center on campus, and I feel more informed and encouraged to refer my students to the Writing Center in the future. 

Laura Mendez Carvajal (Political Science):

The fellowship was an excellent opportunity to learn and contribute to diversifying the curriculum in higher education. I worked with Angela Vidal-Rodriguez on the topic of diversifying the curriculum. More specifically, I conducted a literature review on decolonizing the curriculum and observed the workshop “Reimagining the Curriculum.” I provided feedback on the workshop and proposals for improvement and created pre- and post-workshop surveys to measure the workshop’s impact on participants. I really appreciate having worked with Angela; I learned a lot from her. 

If you would like  to know more about the fellowship program, here is a full description from the CITAL website: Visiting Faculty Fellowship Program.

If you would like to know who else has received these fellowships so far, here is a list of Past Visiting Fellows.