"The Great Lakes Colleges Association (GLCA) has received a generous grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to launch the New Directions Initiative. The focus of this new program is to support the renewal and continued professional growth of liberal arts faculty members in 'mid-career' - the extensive professional period between receiving tenure and thinking seriously about retirement.

A particular emphasis of this program is to help faculty members think outside traditional boundaries and divisions of their discipline and of typical faculty work - chart a course that leads beyond the familiar waters of one's early academic achievements and embarks on the extended journey of a stimulating faculty career. Three general themes capture this emphasis:
 

• To Broaden Intellectual Perspectives, helping mid-career faculty to expand their horizons and understand issues beyond the context of their own disciplines in conjunction with other faculty members who share similar interests;

• To Stimulate Innovation in Pedagogy, providing opportunities for faculty to work together in sharpening pedagogy, based on expanding knowledge and best practices for teaching both within and beyond particular fields of study;

• To Pursue Singular Explorations, which accord individual faculty members the time required to explore a new career direction. "

Resources for preparing and submitting a proposal to the New Directions Initiative:

• The 2010-11 Call for Proposals contains a description of the goals of the New Directions Initiative, submission requirements, and proposal review criteria
• Each proposal must include a completed a Project Submission Summary form and a  Institutional Awareness form (A current version of Acrobat Reader is required to complete these PDF Forms.)
• The Full Proposal Preparation and Submission Guidelines describe the contents and format of a New Directions Full Proposal
• The Exploration Proposal Preparation and Submission Guidelines describe the contents and format of a New Directions Exploration Proposal
• You may find it useful to read about lessons learned from proposals that have been returned with a recommendation of "Revise and resubmit"
• The Project Report Guidelines describe what is expected of the final project report and program impact evaluation

Proposals will be reviewed three times in the fall and the spring.