[321] Professors can seek funding to include women’s issues in MTSU courses

MURFREESBORO — MTSU professors can tap into valuable teaching resources as the President’s Commission on the Status of Women offers its annual Curriculum Integration Grants.

Educators can apply for one of three grants of $1,800 each to include the experiences and perspectives of women in their teaching. The deadline to submit proposals is Monday, Feb. 10, and the grants will be awarded for the 2014-15 academic year.

Grants may be used to revise a course, revise a general education course for a study-abroad program, create a new course, reconceptualize a current minor or create a new minor.

“We’re so pleased with the ongoing success of this program and the impact it has on MTSU’s curriculum,” said Dr. Samantha Cantrell, the current chair of the commission and grants development specialist for the university’s Office of Research Services.

Dr. Amanda DiPaolo, an assistant professor of political science at MTSU, is using her 2013 grant funding to add cases on women’s issues to her constitutional law courses.

The cases in Constitutional Law I, for example, deal with applying the 14th Amendment, which pertains to U.S. citizenship and civil rights, to women in the late 1880s and early 1900s.

Since Constitutional Law II is specifically about rights, DiPaolo expanded the cases in her course syllabus to include Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, among others.

Dr. Joonghwa Lee, an assistant professor of journalism, used his grant to revise his Survey of Advertising class. It will explore how advertising uses gender stereotypes to target female consumers.

Teams of students in Lee’s revamped course will analyze ads for women’s products or brands and suggest strategies to improve them.

Dr. Julie Barger, an assistant professor of English, created a new course, “Themes in Literature and Culture: Women Writing History,” with her 2013 grant.

The new class will examine through literature and other media how women have been excluded or marginalized and how they strove for inclusion and equality. Course texts include novels, poetry, nonfiction, a memoir and documentary films.

Members of the Academic Issues Subcommittee of the President’s Commission on the Status of Women will review each grant proposal. Courses that can be developed or revised for undergraduates and implemented within two years will receive priority consideration.

Proposals should show the intersections of women’s concerns with race/ethnicity, class and/or sexual orientation and also should include innovative teaching techniques.

Only faculty members who have not received a Curriculum Integration Grant in the past four years can apply.