The Brown/Wheaton Faculty Fellows Program, a collaborative program between Brown University and Wheaton College, annually offers advanced graduate students the opportunity to experience faculty life firsthand at a liberal arts college. By teaching a one-semester course at Wheaton and participating in the intellectual life of the college, Brown/Wheaton Faculty Fellows gain a better understanding of the responsibilities and challenges of academic life at a four-year, liberal arts college, which can be markedly different than those at a research institution such as Brown. Beginning in 2009-10, during the term of their appointments, Faculty Fellows will be compensated at the same rate as Brown teaching assistants.
Wheaton College is a selective, coeducational liberal arts college of 120 full-time faculty and 1,550 students. Located in nearby Norton, Massachusetts, Wheaton was founded in 1834 as a women's institution and became coeducational in 1987. As with most liberal arts colleges, Wheaton 's educational philosophy is predicated on a close, collaborative relationship between students and faculty. A low student-faculty ratio and small class size (between fifteen and twenty) means students know their professors as scholar-teachers, advisors, mentors, and supervisors of research projects. Wheaton offers a curriculum leading to a degree in Bachelor of Arts in more than forty-four majors and sixty minors. Students choose from over 1,525 courses in subjects from physics to philosophy, political science to computer science, art history to theater, English to economics. The Wheaton curriculum demonstrates the college's commitment to the traditional breadth and depth of the liberal arts and sciences while promoting connections across established academic divisions. Its new curriculum transformation initiative, the Infusion Project, integrates critical studies on race/ethnicity and its intersections with gender, sexuality, class, religion and technology in the US and globally in all disciplines.
At Brown, the program is administered by the Graduate School and the Harriet W. Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning.
Qualifications
Brown doctoral students who have completed their coursework, advanced to candidacy (are at the dissertation-writing stage), have at least two semesters of college-level teaching experience, and are in their fifth year of studies are eligible to apply for the Brown/Wheaton Faculty Fellows Program. Application is made through a Dissertation Completion Proposal (DCP.) The Graduate School, pooling resources with graduate programs, may award meritorious DCPs with stipend support, a tuition scholarship, health insurance coverage, or a combination thereof. Brown/Wheaton Faculty Fellows receive stipend support.
Successful candidates will have a strong commitment to teaching, as demonstrated by their participation in departmental teaching seminars and/or in the Sheridan Center's teaching certificate programs. Ideally, applicants will have completed the Sheridan Center's Certificate I and Certificate III programs.
Expectations
Brown/Wheaton Faculty Fellows teach one course and participate fully in the intellectual life of the college community. They attend department and faculty meetings (as non-voting participants), take part in relevant monthly teaching and learning workshops, and share their ongoing research with Wheaton colleagues through presentations at the Faculty Luncheon Series.
Brown/Wheaton Faculty Fellows are assigned a faculty mentor from their home department at Wheaton. Upon selection and before the semester starts, Faculty Fellows meet with their mentors to review the syllabus and assignments and to establish a schedule for regular meetings throughout the term. The mentors serve as sounding boards about the progress of the Fellows' courses, observe their classes and make recommendations, and help acculturate them to the four-year college environment.
To assess their teaching, Faculty Fellows use Wheaton's standard course evaluation form at the end of the semester and are observed and given feedback by the department chair or colleague. At the end of each term, Faculty Fellows meet individually with their Wheaton mentors or department chairs to assess their development and performance. All Fellows are required to submit a summary report about their experience in the program to the Graduate School and Sheridan Center at Brown and to Wheaton College.
Current and former Brown/Wheaton Faculty Fellows
2012-2013
Daniel Loss, History
2011-2012
Shawna M. Hollen, Physics
"The Physics of Solids" (for the Department of Physics)
Khristina F. Gonzalez, English
"On Vampires and Violent Vixens: The Literary and Sexual History of Making Monsters" (for the Department of English)
2010-2011
Jessica Johnson, American Civilization
"U.S. Immigrant History" (for the History Department)
Joshua Vaillancourt, Religious Studies
"Science and Religion" (for the Religion Department)
2009-2010
Daniel Block, English
"Eighteenth Century British Literature and the Technology of Writing" (for the English Department)Elise Morrison, Theatre and Performance Studies
"Surveillance Society/Surveillance Art" (for Theatre/Dance Studies)Christine Reiser, Anthropology
"Native North Americans" (for the Anthropology Department)
2008-2009
Erica Haskell, Music
"The Politics of Music" (for the Music Department)Eric Larson, American Civilization
"After the 60s: Social Movements in the Americas" (for the History Department)Sarah Wald, American Civilization
"U.S. Nature Writing" (for the English Department)
2007-2008
Theresa DiDonato, Psychology
"Social Psychology" (for the Psychology Department)Gill Frank, American Civilization
"The History of Sexuality in the Twentieth Century" (for the History Department)Dan Ullucci, Religious Studies
"The Historical Jesus" (for the Religion Department)
2006-2007
Claudia Esposito, French Studies
"Introduction to Francophone Literature: Postcolonial Encounters" (for the French Studies Department)Pilapa Esara, Anthropology
"Globalization and Social Changes in Southeast Asia" (for the Anthropology/Asian Studies Departments)Shawn Greenlee, Music
"Computers and Music" (for the Music Department)
2005-2006
Teresa Celada, Philosophy
"Applied Ethics" (for the Philosophy department)Jennifer Feather, English
First-Year Seminar - "Self-Fashioning, Then and Now: Gender and Race in Renaissance Literature and Popular Culture" (for the English department)Benjamin Hutz, Mathematics
"Multivariable Calculus" (for the Mathematics & Computer Science department)Keeley Schell, Classics
"Epic in Translation" (for the Classics department)
2004-2005
Celeste Sullivan, Anthropology
"Islam: Faith and Practice" (for the Religion department)Amy Vines, English
"Heroes in Medieval Romance" (for the English department)Susanne Wiedemann, American Civilization
"The Holocaust in American Literature and Culture" (for the English department)
