Teaching and Learning

Center for Academic Excellence

Fairfield University has a long commitment to the development of progressive and innovative pedagogy, with each of its six schools continuously exploring and fostering more efficient and effective teaching methods and outcomes. The Center for Academic Excellence provides a central place on campus dedicated to supporting the development of the best in new teaching methodologies, the expansion of student-faculty research opportunities, the ongoing support for continuous reflection on teaching, and the scholarship of teaching and learning. By creating a forum that unites and organizes these efforts, interdisciplinary learning communities whereby faculty and students benefit from the sharing of both knowledge and resources can be built. Endowment funds are needed to cover all operating costs associated with running the Center, including staffing, faculty seminars and workshops, curriculum development, evaluation and assessment, materials, dissemination, special guest speakers, and more. Many of these activities represent excellent naming opportunities.

Endowed Chair in Bioinformatics and Proteomics

In biology, on a national level, the fields of bioinformatics and proteomics have become critically important to scientific advancement and its knowledge of and benefits to humankind. Discoveries in these fields promise to yield major breakthroughs, especially in medicine and public health, and students trained in these disciplines will be actively recruited by graduate and medical schools, pharmaceutical and other industries, as well as the federal government, given that major advancements in the regulation and treatment of major diseases remains a high priority. For Fairfield to rise to its next level of distinction in the sciences, the establishment of an endowed chair in one of these developing fields is essential. The addition of a teacher-scholar with expertise in bioinformatics or proteomics - perhaps both - will position Fairfield at the forefront of cutting edge learning and discovery. Such a chair would advance one of Fairfield's premier departments - Biology - into its next phase of growth, attract a new and formidable talent among faculty, students, and leadership, and solidify Fairfield University's prominence in science education and scholarship among the 28 Jesuit colleges and universities.

Science Scholarship Center

In the past decade, advances in the biological sciences and computational technology have contributed to an explosive growth in professional and career opportunities for students receiving a bachelor of science in biology. However, most students still enter the biology major with the intention of attending medical school after graduation. Because of the multitude of choices available today, there is a greater need for striving for informed discernment moments to occur during a student's undergraduate education. To address this need, the University proposes the establishment of a Science Scholarship Center, which will be the centerpiece and home of this initiative. The Center will offer: student and alumni mentoring programs; expansion of undergraduate research activities; a research assistantship program; industry speakers; and faculty-run programs in discernment. Through these efforts, the University expects to not only strengthen the biology program at Fairfield, but provide a model that may be used by sibling Jesuit schools, as well as the greater academic community, to enhance biology students' experiences and lives.

Religious Studies Department

Among the most active in service to the wider University community, Fairfield's Religious Studies Department functions as an intellectual crossroads for students just entering the University, as well as for those advanced in the exploration of religious ideas and experience. Charged with the responsibility to engage the student body both at the introductory and advanced levels, members of the Department must today respond to rapidly changing world dynamics, an ever-growing global consciousness, a more diverse student body, and an explosion of information about religious systems. As such, the Department seeks to establish a Departmental Scholar to oversee the implementation of new student-centered and faculty-centered initiatives. To meet introductory students' dynamic needs, the Department seeks resources for a year-long Introduction to Religious Studies Review Colloquium. For more advanced students, the Department seeks to facilitate greater interaction among students themselves, to learn from scholars outside the University, and to provide more opportunities to engage with faculty in research. For faculty members, the Department seeks resources to facilitate greater dialogue among themselves and with notable colleagues in the field. In all of these initiatives, the Departmental Scholar will monitor the process, establish deadlines, and provide intellectual leadership.

Visual and Performing Arts Department

Each semester, Fairfield's Visual and Performing Arts (VPA) Department teaches one-third of the University's undergraduates, many through the core curriculum. No other Jesuit university offers the breadth of programs (art history; music; new media film, television and radio; studio art; and theatre) within this major. The Department's programmatic goal is to institute a visiting artist/scholar program, which will be richly enhanced by Fairfield's proximity to major artistic centers and the scholarly connections of the VPA faculty. Bringing such accomplished individuals to campus will create new ways to integrate the arts across disciplines, increase options for collaboration in and outside the classroom, and have an impact on faculty research as well.

The Bellarmine Museum

The Visual and Performing Arts Department is working with the University to create a museum on the lower-level of Bellarmine Hall. It will house a representative collection of medieval (Western Europe), Byzantine, and Irish works of art on loan from the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Medieval Department and its Cloisters Collection. In addition, master paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection and other University-owned works of art will be on exhibit, making the Bellarmine Museum a visible component of the integrated liberal arts education offered at Fairfield.

School of Nursing Learning Resource Center

In its thirty-five year history, the School of Nursing has developed a solid reputation of preparing nursing leaders through strong academics and hands-on clinical experience. Unfortunately, the School's facilities have not kept pace with the latest trends in technology and clinical lab resources. At a time when patient care is threatened by a significant shortage of nurses and doctorate-prepared nursing faculty, it is critical that the facilities and techniques used to educate students are state-of-the-art. The University seeks to equip the School of Nursing with a Learning Resource Center that includes an updated skills area, a multimedia "smart" classroom, two simulation rooms, and upgraded wireless classrooms. In addition, the University seeks to provide the resources necessary for faculty to modify and develop curricula that incorporate simulations and other new and highly effective technology linking classroom to clinical teaching. This new approach will help the School reach its goal of providing an academic learning environment featuring one of the world's highest standards of nursing education to better meet the health care needs of an increasingly diverse population.

Endowed Chair in Palliative Care

In today's society, there is a substantial deficit between the way people want to die and the way they actually do. A significant percentage of the population die in hospitals, with breathing and feeding tubes. Yet the multidimensional nature of end-of-life care should consider broader aspects of quality of life including biological, psychological, social, and spiritual components. In order to reduce the deficit between what patients want and what actually happens at the end of life, the education of nurses in palliative care is essential. However, despite this great need, only one program in palliative care nursing is available throughout the U.S. An Endowed Chair in Palliative Care Nursing will provide the necessary leadership to develop, implement, and market a graduate program at the Fairfield University School of Nursing, as well as extend the science in this essential area of nursing research. This endowed chair will further the excellent reputation and leadership of the School of Nursing in the care of older adults, and raise its visibility in the national and international arenas.

Charles F. Dolan School of Business Marketing Funds

The Charles F. Dolan School of Business currently spends $150,000 per year to market its graduate programs and external events. A dedicated marketing fund will allow the School to launch a media campaign involving the Internet, direct mail, television, radio, and print. This campaign will highlight the Dolan School as a top ranked business school in the country and give it the visibility necessary to become a "known" entity. Such a marketing campaign can be launched over a two-three year period with annual gifts, while a permanent endowment will guarantee that funds will always be available to properly market the Charles F. Dolan School of Business.

Charles F. Dolan School of Business Faculty Recruitment, Retention, and Supplemental Funds

The Dolan School of Business continues to face challenges in recruiting the very best faculty. Aside from competing with the cost of living in the Fairfield County region, it is quite common for schools to provide substantial summer research grants as a way to both recruit and retain engaged, leading faculty. To enable the Dolan School to be competitive with other institutions, Fairfield needs to be able to offer summer research stipends as a recruitment tool for new faculty and a retention tool for existing faculty. Annual gifts will provide faculty with research grants on an annual basis, while a permanent Faculty and Retention Endowment Fund will guarantee research grants on a continual basis. In addition, supplemental funds are needed to enhance teaching expertise in cross-functional areas, building on existing strengths while integrating with the University core and other curriculum. For instance, additional teaching and scholarship experience abroad will provide faculty with richer experiences that will translate to better teaching in the classroom. With additional resources, faculty will be better able to develop relevant case studies based on current events in business ethics. Finally, the development of compelling experiential learning exercises would be possible in each functional area, such as new experiential uses of Fairfield's state-of-the art BEST classroom. By developing the profile of scholarship at the Dolan School of Business through its faculty, its undergraduate and graduate programs will become more attractive to prospective students and more prominently known on a national and international level.

For further information on the above initiatives, please contact:

Michael Boyd
Associate Vice President for Individual Giving
Fairfield University
1073 North Benson Road
Fairfield, CT 06824
(203) 254-4000, ext. 2387

To support any of the above initiatives, checks can be made out to Fairfield University and designated to the selected funding priority in the memo line.