Faculty Fellows Program
The CDLA Faculty Fellows Program fosters critical, innovative, and interdisciplinary digital approaches to Occidental’s liberal arts curriculum and research. As Faculty Fellows, Occidental faculty members are selectively affiliated with the Center for Digital Liberal Arts, where they have the opportunity and support to develop new skills, experiment with new pedagogical approaches, and collaborate with colleagues at the cutting edge of the digital liberal arts. The Faculty Fellows Program offers funding for a course buyout, a modest stipend, technical resources and expertise, and the time and space for collaborative work. The program provides an opportunity to initiate, redesign, or advance digital research projects, and/or develop discipline-specific pedagogical models that integrate digital modes and methods.
Goals of the Faculty Fellows Program
Pedagogy + Lab
During these semester-long fellowships, faculty fellows will have the opportunity to develop digital research projects and experiment with new pedagogical approaches, particularly through digital liberal arts lab courses. These labs will ideally provide students the opportunity to learn and apply new (and likely digital) scholarly methods in disciplinary contexts. The details of any individual course will need to go through the College’s course approval procedures, but the program’s goal is the creation (or redesign) of courses with dedicated labs that allow for the development of pedagogies not currently possible. These labs will be taught or team-taught by some combination of faculty fellows and the postdoctoral fellows affiliated with the CDLA.
Research + Design
The CDLA will provide sustained technical support and design consultation for various emerging digital methods and authoring platforms, including (but not limited to): digital maps, virtual and augmented reality, digital exhibits, data visualization, audio/visual media production (e.g. podcasts, video and image editing, photography, etc.), social media, Oxy’s own Global Crossroads, and the recently launched Critical Making Studio (including 3-D printing, media creation software, and various prototyping tools).
While technology-driven calls for collaboration abound in educational environments, CDLA’s vision for collaboration builds on Occidental’s liberal arts foundation. Our “knowledge design” approach prioritizes faculty fellows’ disciplinary/methodological positions and teaching philosophies, from which we develop strategies for leveraging various features of these tools and platforms to create digital forms of scholarly interpretation and analysis. For the courses geared towards digital media production, we identify areas for critical thinking and experimentation in both the development process and final products. The design process also addresses practical questions: the learning curve (for instructors and students) for acquiring new skill sets; scalability and sustainability of fellows’ projects for future implementations; and the rubric for evaluating digital assignments. Tailored to the needs and the aspirations of each fellow, the design workshops will result in specific teaching plans for courses and/or prototypes for digital and media components of the fellow’s research agenda.
Building Communities of Practice
These fellowships are designed to essentially embed faculty members within the CDLA to advance collaboration across the disciplines and to develop a critical discourse around the practice of digital scholarship at Occidental and other liberal arts institutions. Faculty fellows and members of the CDLA team will also have the opportunity to situate these discussions in relation to recent developments in academia (distant and hybrid learning models; digital open access journals; new media and digital humanities; condition of digital knowledge production) and the broader digital culture. The fellows’ insights and reflections from our collaboration will be presented to the rest of Oxy community through a symposium or roundtable to mark the conclusion of the fellow’s term.
Research + Design
The CDLA will provide sustained technical support and design consultation for various emerging digital methods and authoring platforms, including (but not limited to): digital maps, virtual and augmented reality, digital exhibits, data visualization, audio/visual media production (e.g. podcasts, video and image editing, photography, etc.), social media, Oxy’s own Global Crossroads, and the recently launched Critical Making Studio (including 3-D printing, media creation software, and various prototyping tools).
While technology-driven calls for collaboration abound in educational environments, CDLA’s vision for collaboration builds on Occidental’s liberal arts foundation. Our “knowledge design” approach prioritizes faculty fellows’ disciplinary/methodological positions and teaching philosophies, from which we develop strategies for leveraging various features of these tools and platforms to create digital forms of scholarly interpretation and analysis. For the courses geared towards digital media production, we identify areas for critical thinking and experimentation in both the development process and final products. The design process also addresses practical questions: the learning curve (for instructors and students) for acquiring new skill sets; scalability and sustainability of fellows’ projects for future implementations; and the rubric for evaluating digital assignments. Tailored to the needs and the aspirations of each fellow, the design workshops will result in specific teaching plans for courses and/or prototypes for digital and media components of the fellow’s research agenda.
