The Chattanooga State Faculty Fellows program recognizes and supports innovative faculty who develop and implement academic projects that support scholarship and promote student success. Chattanooga State Faculty Fellowships are named for former faculty members and/or administrators who demonstrated outstanding scholarship and dedication to teaching and learning. Chattanooga State faculty must apply for a fellowship with an innovative project that promotes the highest levels of scholarship. Based upon these applications, Faculty Fellows are selected by the Faculty Senate Fellows Selection Committee.

2018-2019 Chattanooga State Faculty Fellows

The Amanda Wynn Humanities and Fine Arts Fellows: Dr. Allison Fetters and Dr. Scott Douglass are developing a new course for students entitled “Mayhem, Mischief, and Mirth: Shakespeare in Cinema,” the course will build on the most successful elements of existing courses within the Humanities Department to offer students a unique literary and film study experience. The course will be designed with a focus on historical analysis of William Shakespeare’s contributions to the foundations of English literature as well as his influence on modern thought. In addition to a deep exploration of historical context, the course will examine Shakespeare’s literary contributions through critical analysis of his plays in written form. Students will examine Shakespeare’s plays via traditional and modern film adaptations. To encourage classroom engagement, learning communities, collaborative assignments and projects, and undergraduate research, Dr. Fetters and Dr. Douglass will design curriculum that facilitates an active classroom learning environment following a student-seminar model.

The Bea Lyons Social and Behavioral Sciences Fellow: Dr. Skylar Davidson will evaluate how the Causal Layered Analysis technique can be used to improve communication among students regarding contentious issues. Causal Layered Analysis (CLA) is a writing tool invented by Sohail Inayatullah that enables people to analyze an issue in four layers, from the shallowest talking points to the deep, hard-to-see assumptions and motivations. Dr. Davidson asserts that the benefit of adapting this technique for educational use is that it allows students to move beyond the shallow understanding of an issue often found in mainstream discourse--to develop a more comprehensive way of looking at an issue and to seek out points of commonality with people who have a different perspective (Inayatullah 1998).

The Bea Lyons Social and Behavioral Sciences Fellows: Dr. Elizabeth Norell and Dr. William Taylor are creating a Chattanooga State-specific in-house professional development resource to utilize the knowledge, experiences, and opportunities of the Chattanooga State faculty. Dr. Norell’s and Dr. Taylor’s intent is to organize these resources into coherent modules with examples, videos and exercises situated within the context of Chattanooga State. The resources will be an on-demand offering, available to all faculty (full-time or part-time), to use as needed. The goal is that this professional development resource will expand into an organic library of evergreen best practices, concrete examples, research, resources, etc. that transcend specific disciplines. 

Inayatullah, S. (1998). “Causal Layered Analysis: Poststructuralism as Method.” Futures 30(8):815-829.

By Donna Seagle, Ph.D., Chattanooga State