Project Background

The Objective

The Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning (CIRTL) will create a model interdisciplinary professional development program in teaching and learning that will prepare graduate students, and with them post-doctoral researchers and current faculty (hereinafter “graduates-through-faculty”) to meet the future challenges of national STEM higher education. . . . CIRTL seeks to influence graduate-through-faculty development at a significant number of research institutions throughout the nation. Developing effective methods of adapting programs successful at one research university to another is central to the CIRTL scope of work . . . Ultimately the vision is to . . . create STEM faculties at all higher education institutions committed to ongoing improvement of student learning.
— CIRTL Strategic Plan, 2003

CIRTL’s primary aim for the first two years was the development, implementation, and evaluation of a prototype professional development program in teaching and learning for STEM graduates-through-faculty based on the three CIRTL pillars: teaching-as-research, learning communities, learning-through-diversity.  The prototype program at the University of Wisconsin (UW) is called the Delta Program in Research, Teaching, and Learning. The primary roles of CIRTL with respect to the Delta Program are (a) initial development and funding and (b) evaluation and research on the program’s impact on graduate-through-faculty participants and on UW as an institution.  Each component of the Delta Program weaves together the three CIRTL pillars and is designed around research models familiar to STEM graduates-through-faculty.  To learn more about the Delta Program, visit the Delta website at http://www.delta.wisc.edu/.

CIRTL has moved into a new phase in its development where the focus is shifting to the CIRTL Network.  The vision of the CIRTL Network is a learning community, which implies the mutual exchange of successful strategies and programs based on the CIRTL pillars. UW, Michigan State University (MSU), and the Pennsylvania State University (PSU) are the founding members of the Network.  The collegiality and respect inherent in this learning community approach have led naturally to mutual support in program development at all three universities. Howard University, the University of Colorado at Boulder, Vanderbilt University, and Texas A&M University have recently joined the Network.   

CIRTL
1025 W. Johnson St.
Madison, WI 53706
ph.: 608.263.0630
fax: 608.265.0538