Grinnell awarded $1.2 million from HHMI
Grinnell College received a $1.2 million grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), the nation's largest private supporter of science education.
Grinnell was one of 48 national undergraduate institutions to receive a grant from a field of more than 220 invited to submit proposals in 2007.
"Grinnell faculty have long been committed to modeling for students the powerful experience that comes with doing science," said Mark Levandoski, associate professor of chemistry and program director for the HHMI grant.
"In the new team-taught courses, we expect to develop collaborative teaching experiences so Grinnell students will observe faculty from different disciplines doing science together.
"Another goal of the grant is to expand science beyond the science division, complementing our current interdisciplinary efforts through the campus' Expanding Knowledge Initiative. We are grateful to HHMI for affording us this opportunity to creatively strengthen science education at Grinnell."
The four-year grant, announced April 22, will support development of:
- Team-taught, interdisciplinary science courses;
- Assessment tools to measure the effectiveness of science teaching;
- Student-faculty research; and
- Instrumentation to support the new courses and undergraduate research.
Approximately one-third of Grinnell students graduate with a major in science, and many continue into some of the top graduate programs in the country; in fact, Grinnell ranks high nationally in the matriculation of graduates who later complete Ph.D.s in chemistry (6th nationally); biological sciences (9th); psychology (9th); and physics (20th).
The 2008 HHMI grant is the third Grinnell has received since 2000. HHMI, a non-profit medical research organization headquartered in Chevy Chase, Md., has invested more than $1.2 billion in grants to reinvigorate science education at liberal arts colleges and research universities and to engage the nation's leading scientists in teaching. HHMI President Tom Cech '70, a Grinnell alumnus, is a Nobel Prize winner.
