Inclusive, Relevant, Integrative: Health and Wellbeing in Design Education
Instructor: Christina Bollo
Funded Amount: $5,360
This proposal expands and refines a flipped-course model that teaches health and wellbeing principles to Architecture and Interior Architecture students through asynchronous instructional videos and highly interactive in-class activities. By combining global practitioner perspectives with active, collaborative learning, the course aims to help students apply evidence-based wellbeing concepts directly to their design practice.
Writing Musically
Instructor: Abigail Fine
Funded Amount: $18,880
This upper-level undergraduate course, “Writing Musically,” is designed to help students transform close musical listening into vivid, energetic prose across genres, with an emphasis on lively nonfiction. Drawing on expertise in music history and writing pedagogy, the course aims to cultivate clear, inventive, and distinctly human writing in an era of increasingly formulaic AI-generated text.
Hands on STEM: Brain Biosensing
Instructor: Christina Karns
Funded Amount: $22,720
This proposal outlines a two-phase plan to create a hands-on Psychology/Neuroscience course in which students build and use low-cost, open-source EEG technology (OpenBCI) to learn core concepts in brainwave recording, analysis, and application. A small pilot course will generate instructional materials and data to support a scalable flipped-classroom version for 50–100 students, expanding access to experiential STEM learning while addressing cost, scalability, and scaffolding barriers.
Hostile Design in Eugene
Instructor: Solmaz Kive
Funded Amount: $9,990
This proposal is for a seminar on “hostile design,” in which students study how architectural and urban design practices exclude unhoused people and collaborate with community members to document local examples. It will include development of analytical tools and a digital platform, compensate participants with lived experience, and support public sharing of the project’s findings.
Undergraduate Seminar Series for Chemistry and Biochemistry Majors
Instructor: Michael Koscho
Funded Amount: $21,900
This proposal introduces a four-year seminar series to equip Chemistry and Biochemistry majors with essential professional, ethical, communication, and community-building skills not addressed in traditional coursework. Through progressively scaffolded one-credit courses, community partnerships, and peer mentoring, the program aims to strengthen student success, foster an inclusive departmental culture, and prepare graduates for diverse career pathways.
Smoothing the iClicker Transition
Instructor: Phillip Matern and Mike Urbancic
Funded Amount: $11,320
This proposal outlines a plan to support UO’s transition from physical iClicker remotes to the subscription-based iCloud app by maintaining a loanable inventory of remotes, improving campus communication, and providing instructor training for mixed-mode use. It also recommends financial assistance for students who may need to purchase app subscriptions despite already owning physical remotes.
August Wilson's Century Cycle
Instructor: Michael Malek Najjar
Funded Amount: $14,200
This proposal seeks support to teach August Wilson’s full “Century Cycle” as part of the Theatre Arts Core Education curriculum, using the plays to explore key historical and cultural experiences of Black Americans in the twentieth century. The course would incorporate filmed adaptations, critical writings, guest artists, and a field trip to deepen students’ understanding of Wilson’s legacy and contemporary Black theatre.
Demystifying the Business of Media (and what it means to you and your career)
Instructor: Damian Radcliffe
Funded Amount: $5,660
This proposal requests support to develop a new required 300-level “Business of Media” course that will serve all SOJC majors—including Advertising, Public Relations, Journalism, Media Studies, and the new Games Studies program. The course will equip students with a foundational understanding of media economics, emerging technologies, ethical and regulatory issues, and industry strategy that will enhance their work in other classes and strengthen the overall curriculum.
Science Stories and Popular Media
Instructor: Kelly Sutherland and Mark Blaine
Funded Amount: $11,320
This proposal introduces a team-taught, 100-level General Education course, “Science Stories and Popular Media,” designed to help students translate scientific information for public audiences through narrative forms such as documentaries, podcasts, and written pieces. Students will critically engage with science narratives and collaborate on a final project producing their own science stories, fostering both science communication skills and interdisciplinary learning across Biology and Journalism.
Enhancing Intercultural Competence in Second-Year Italian
Instructor: Caludia Ventura
Funded Amount: $12,980
This proposal aims to redesign the second-year Italian curriculum to more effectively integrate intercultural learning and align formative and summative assessments, using authentic materials and backward-designed activities. By updating interpretive, presentational, and interpersonal tasks with multimedia and interdisciplinary reflections, the project seeks to enhance students’ language proficiency and intercultural competence in line with American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Language best practices.
Hands-on Film History
Instructor: Colin Williamson
Funded Amount: $10,154
This project proposes a new upper-level course that reimagines early film history education by combining traditional research with hands-on, creative experimentation in historical film and animation techniques. Funding will support course development and workshops with guest artists, enabling students to actively construct knowledge and integrate critical studies with film production practices.