Provost's awards are announced

The Provost Opportunity Fund has awarded grants to nine University projects, including a digital media support center, multimedia language learning center, faculty development program and undergraduate research initiative.

The largest award for the 2002-2003 fiscal year, $350,000, will help Information Services create an Interactive Design and Educational Applications, or IDEA, lab to support integrated digital media, electronic curriculum development and multi-sensory learning tools. The Provost Opportunity Fund grant will provide for a digital studio, post-production suite, encoders, servers and professional services for the lab.

The University's current Language Learning Center will be transformed into a multimedia facility with the help of $260,000 from the Provost Opportunity Fund. The award to the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures will enable the center to develop and deliver multimedia language learning materials to residence halls and class rooms and to set up collaborative learning pods in a classroom setting.

An award of $250,000 to the departments of electrical engineering and computer science, chemical engineering, materials science and engineering and physics, will equip the Microfabrication Laboratory with additional research tools. The funds will go toward the purchase of a plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) system, a software upgrade for an existing plasma etch tool and a new electron beam lithography system.

The Provost Opportunity Fund will provide $205,000 to create, equip and operate a centralized, state-of-the-art cell culture facility for the School of Medicine's Department of Molecular Biology and Microbiology. The new multi-disciplinary center for human virus research will provide facilities for handling human pathogens, such as hepatitis C, HIV and human papilloma virus, under BL2 containment; perform the cell culture required for molecular virology using model systems; and allow the cultivation of cells on a large scale to permit biochemical analysis of potential antiviral drug targets.

The School of Medicine also will receive $175,000 to establish Scholars Collaboration in Teaching and Learning, a faculty development program that links instructors and students in the study of teaching and learning and supports and provides time to develop innovative curricula and teaching skills.

The Provost Opportunity Fund will provide the Weatherhead School of Management with $200,000 to support Business as an Agent of World Benefit, an international series of more than 1,000 comprehensive interviews and conversations with business CEOs, leading management thinkers, visionary critics and ethical-spiritual teachers. The research will create a typology of human strengths and positive business leadership at the intersection of organization and society.

Grants of $100,000 each will help to create a Center for Statistics and Geospatial Data and an Undergraduate Summer Research on the CWRU Campus program. The Center for Statistics and Geospatial Data will make data obtained from different resources or created by CWRU affiliates available for use and provide the technical and organizational means to capture new data sets. Undergraduate Summer Research on the CWRU Campus will involve students in engineering, math and the physical sciences in faculty-guided on-campus research projects.

A $67,500 award will begin to establish a new Center for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology. The funds will enable the physics department to host an international workshop and create a community visitor program, among other activities.

The Provost's Opportunity Fund also reserves $300,000 to seed start-up packages for new faculty hires from under-represented groups. The College of Arts and Sciences has been awarded $90,000 for hiring, while the Case School of Engineering will receive $10,000. Another $200,000 is available. Deans may apply for these funds throughout the year as outstanding candidates are identified.

The Provost's Opportunity Fund awards a total of $2 million in single-year grants to support high visibility, higher education projects endorsed by the deans of CWRU's schools and colleges.

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