Dates for SFI 2025: May 27 - June 27, 2025
Location: TBD
Applications for SFI 2025 are due 10:00am, Monday, October 7, 2024
Overview of the Institute
During the Summer Faculty Institute participants converse about and explore elements of teaching, research, and collegiality extending from constructing syllabi to managing preparation-time wisely, from enlisting colleagues as critics of our writing to managing writing-time wisely, from serving on departmental committees to taking part in the conversation about what it means to be an R1 Christian University.
Principal Activities
- From the first, emphasizing the importance of generating new insights or knowledge and spreading that new material through research and publication as well as through our teaching.
- Helping participants articulate a plan of coinherence between research and teaching which includes developing a research agenda, a five-year plan for accomplishing that agenda, and ideas about how to integrate teaching and research into a seamless web of productivity.
- Exploring regular daily writing combined with satisfactory, but not excessive, preparation for the classroom.
- Exploring the art of teaching while eliciting insights from participants into teaching and learning and adding insights from experienced teachers as well.
- Providing guidance about the effective use of technology in the classroom.
- Modeling team teaching and inviting reflections about the process.
- Modeling interdisciplinary teaching, and, again, inviting reflections on the process.
- Discussing collegiality at Baylor and in academe in general.
- Conversing about the notion of service at Baylor: service to the department, to the school, to the university, to the profession, and to the larger community.
- Combining the activities of teaching, scholarship, and mentoring with Christian conceptions of calling or vocation.
- Throughout the five weeks of our meetings, emphasizing the absolute need to manage our time in such a way that enjoyably living one’s own life, especially one’s family life (if applicable), remains a top priority.
Other Information
- Eligibility: SFI is available to permanent, full-time faculty members with an appointment for the upcoming academic year and the expectation of continued employment beyond the upcoming academic year. There are other circumstances that preclude participation in SFI. For example, full summer funding from an external research grant that requires certification of fulltime work is mutually exclusive from participation in SFI.
- Funding: Eligible participants receive a $10,000 stipend. Stipends are paid to faculty with a 10-month contract. SFI is available to those on 12-month contracts; faculty in that situation simply continue to receive their regular pay while participating in SFI. Eligibility for participation and eligibility for funding are determined for each SFI applicant in collaboration with University administrators and college/school Business Officers.
- Number of Fellowships: 20
- Contact: Applications may be obtained by following the link at the top of this page.
- Deadline: Applications are due by 10:00 a.m. on the designated due date. SFI applications may be submitted via hard copy, but we prefer and encourage electronic submission to atl@baylor.edu. (Supervisory endorsements should be scanned and emailed or may be provided to atl@baylor.edu via email from the endorsers.)