Center for Collaboration and Inquiry

The Center for Collaboration and Inquiry (CCI) is an administrative unit under the direction of both the College of Education and the Buchtel College of Arts and Sciences. The mission of the Center for Collaboration and Inquiry (CCI) is to support, to facilitate, and to develop trans-college collaborative efforts at The University of Akron in the following three areas:

• recruitment and retention of students into STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) programs
• development of language, culture and world affairs programs in critical areas of need and
• development of new programs and enhancement of existing programs for K-12 teacher preparation in STEM disciplines and critical languages

In order to fufill its mission CCI will:

• support the obtaining of grants to take advantage of emerging opportunities for funding in the areas of STEM, critical languages, and teacher training in these fields
• foster trans-college communication among The University of Akron faculty
• foster communication between University faculty and community partners, and
• encourage the incorporation of research experiences, inquiry, experiential learning and service learning into the University’s courses and programs

The STEMS Strike Force and Critical Languages Strike Force, established
by the Council of Deans will serve as the initial Board of Advisors for
CCI.


Goverance

CCI will be led by one director from the College of Education and one director from the Buchtel College of Arts and Science, who will be responsible to their respective deans. Also, The Board of Advisors will give advise to the co-directors.

History and Rationale

A strong national movement is underway to integrate the liberal arts and sciences more fully into the process for preparing and developing teachers candidates, and P-16 educators are also moving away from the traditional model of teacher-centered learning to one characterized as inquiry and inquiry-based learning, where students take a more-active role in the education process. Partly in response to these changes in education philosophy, numerous faculty members in the arts and sciences , engineering, and education at Akron began to work collaboratively. Over the last several years, significant efforts have occurred among faculty in the Buchtel College of Arts and Sciences and The College of Education to collaborate on grant proposals for teaching and learning, to design and implement workshops for teachers, to construct new ways to offer University courses, and to seek ways to strengthen teaching preparation programs.

Evidence suggests that these efforts are leading to improved instruction at the University and to improved programs for producing better prepared P-12 teachers as well as helping existing teachers in our schools, the University, and two-year colleges become more effective teachers. As faculty sought more collaborative efforts, administrators in the two colleges also increased their interactions by exploring ways to facilitate the improvement of inter-college efforts and reduce the inhibiting barriers to these efforts.

Early in the 2000-2001 academic year, Deans of Buchtel College of Arts and Science and the College of Education began to explore ways to institutionalize and strengthen collaboration between the two colleges. The idea of establishing a new unit that would report to both colleges emerged as a way to provide increased visibility and stature for a new initiative focusing on the integration of arts and sciences and education. To explore this idea more fully, a task force was established composed of faculty from both colleges. Many faculty members in both colleges were involved in a task force that generated the mission statement above prior to the creation of CCI. The following contributed to that discussion in the College of Education: Francis Broadway, Kathie Owens, Bob Eley, Hal Foster, Cindy Kovalik, Sharon Kruse, Huey-Li Li, Susan Olson, Lynne Pachnowski, Charlene Reed, James Rogers, John Savery, Beth Stroble, John Weaver, and Sajit Zachariah; and Janet Bean, Julia Burdge, Roger Creel, Chris Eustis, Annabelle Foos, David McConnell, Chand Midha, Chuck Monroe, Peter Niewiarowski, Sophia Papaioannou, Tony Quesada, Rex Ramsier, and Ethel Wheland were contributors in the Buchtel College of Arts & Sciences.

Staff

Co - Directors

Dr. Francis S. Broadway, an associate professor of education at the University of Akron.

Dr. Annabelle M Foos, an associate dean of Buchtel College of Arts and Sciences and a professor of geology at the University of Akron. http://www.uakron.edu/colleges/artsci/depts/geology/amf.php

Founding Director

Dr. David McConnell, a professor of geology at The University of Akron. Dr. McConnell has worked with faculty in the College of Education to incorporate inquiry-based learning strategies into large introductory science courses.