Carnegie Foundation

The Carnegie Foundation recently initiated the CASTL Leadership Program. Carnegie Foundation defined the goals of this program as: “fostering inquiry and leadership for the improvement of student learning; developing and synthesizing knowledge about learning and teaching; and promoting institutional change in support of a scholarship of teaching and learning.  Additionally, this program will encourage the involvement of undergraduates in classroom research projects, introduction of graduate students to the principles and practices of the scholarship of teaching and learning, commitment to working with and across departments and disciplines, and inclusion of adjunct or part-time faculty in teaching and learning initiatives”.

Michigan State University successfully competed for an opportunity to become one of the institutions involved in this initiative.  Our proposal connects the new Residential College in Arts and Humanities to the Graduate School and University Outreach and Engagement.  The goal of the MSU CASTL activities is to integrate graduate and undergraduate education in the arts and humanities around the dual focal points of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) and the Scholarship of Engagement (SoE). 

The creation of the RCAH, which will open its doors in fall 2007 to 600 undergraduate students also will build systematically on previous work at MSU to expand the scope of graduate education and research in these two vitally important areas of scholarship for the next generation of teachers and students.