The MC-Smithsonian Faculty Fellowship program is delighted to announce the 11 new Fellows selected for the 2020 cohort. Once again, competition was strong, and the Committee was faced with the tough task of selecting the new cohort.  The group represents wide-ranging interests and disciplines and will consider the 2020 theme: Humans and the Footprints We Leave: Climate Change and Other Critical Challenges. The cohort includes: Sowbhagyalaksmi Areke (Media Arts and Technology, GT), Craig Benson (Chemistry, RV), Chip Gladson (English, GT), Bill Krayer (Climatology, RV), Alexandra Morales-Picard (Psychology, RV), Teresa Peachey (Meteorology, RV), Mercia Rindler (English, RV), Ingrid Scott (Mathematics and Statistics, RV), Brandon Wallace (Education, TPSS), Gina Wesley (Biology, RV) and Barbara Wolff (Anthropology, RV).

Faculty Fellows will spend the spring 2020 semester focusing on museum learning and pedagogy and will travel to the Smithsonian for a series of seminars and tours featuring Smithsonian curators and educators. During the fall 2020 semester, they will implement new theme-based lessons and assignments that  integrate museum objects and collections with required course content. In the Fellowship, students and faculty experiment with time-tested and novel pedagogical approaches to help MC students formulate their own questions, generate knowledge, and develop more sophisticated approaches to critical thinking and problem-solving.

Now entering its 24th year, the MC-Smithsonian Faculty Fellowship is the product of a unique collaboration between the Paul Peck Humanities Institute and the Smithsonian Center for Learning and Digital Access. It is the first of its kind for the Smithsonian Institution and a community college. More than 190 professors have participated in the Fellowship since its inception, guiding well more than 20,000 MC students and their families through various Smithsonian museums as part of the program.

Please help us in welcoming our 2020 Smithsonian Faculty Fellows!