Overall Rating Gold
Overall Score 66.40
Liaison Margaret Lo
Submission Date June 12, 2023

STARS v2.2

Ball State University
AC-7: Incentives for Developing Courses

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 2.00 / 2.00 Kristen McCauliff
Associate Provost for Faculty Affairs and Professional Development
Provost and Academic Affairs
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Does the institution have an ongoing program that offers incentives for academic staff in multiple disciplines or departments to develop new sustainability courses and/or incorporate sustainability into existing courses? :
Yes

A brief description of the incentive program(s):
Ball State University currently provides a $750 stipend for the following course development and design work:
* Faculty who currently teach or wish to teach in our Core Curriculum. These faculty significantly change or develop a new syllabus to be approved by our core curriculum governance committee.

* Faculty who wish to teach a High Impact Practices course--including an immersive learning course. These faculty develop the syllabus for their course to be approved by the facilitators of the learning community.

* Faculty who wish to make their courses more sustainable by moving away from traditional textbook use to course materials that are openly licensed, electronic, and/or can be housed on a university-supported reading list rather than printed.

Ball State University also provides Immersive Learning grants for faculty wishing to teach immersive learning courses. Many of these grants are awarded to faculty who teach courses that incorporate sustainability projects (see section AC5). The grants range from $1,000-$20,000.

While the goals of these programs are not only limited to sustainability, the institution specifically recruits participants who teach courses that incorporate sustainability elements including student learning outcomes dealing with sustainability and/or course materials that are sustainable.

A brief description of the incentives that academic staff who participate in the program(s) receive:
Faculty members who participate in these workshops and grant opportunities receive a stipend or a course buy out.

These opportunities are advertised semester by semester.

Optional Fields 

Website URL where information about the incentives for developing sustainability course content is available:
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Additional documentation to support the submission:
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Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
In the last academic year (2021-2022), we had eleven faculty members adopt more sustainable course materials. And we had 5 faculty members participate in faculty learning communities that taught sustainability-related courses. Each of these faculty members received a $750 payment.

The information presented here is self-reported. While AASHE staff review portions of all STARS reports and institutions are welcome to seek additional forms of review, the data in STARS reports are not verified by AASHE. If you believe any of this information is erroneous or inconsistent with credit criteria, please review the process for inquiring about the information reported by an institution or simply email your inquiry to stars@aashe.org.