Diane and Gary Tooker Professors Program

Background

The Tooker Professor program recognizes and encourages innovation that advances our academic mission. Base funding for this program comes from an endowment established by Diane and Gary Tooker. Diane is a former elementary school teacher, and Gary is one of our engineering alumni and the former CEO of Motorola; both are passionate about creating exciting learning environments that attract students retain them in STEM fields.

Tooker Professors will be selected via a competitive proposal process. They will be appointed for one- to two-year terms and may re-compete for subsequent appointments. All Fulton Schools of Engineering faculty are eligible to apply. Proposals will be reviewed by a panel who submits recommendations to the Dean.

Proposals are due March 7, 2018 via email to Annette.Bowers@asu.edu.

Proposals for Appointment as Tooker Professor

Interested Fulton Schools of Engineering faculty members should submit:

• A 3-page proposal describing their proposed Tooker Professor activities.
• A one-page resource request.
• A current CV,
• An endorsement/support letter from their school director.

Proposals for this program should support innovations:

• that lead to increased retention and persistence of undergraduate students within Engineering. While nearly 90 percent of our incoming freshmen are retained within ASU after one year, about 70 percent remain within our programs. For comparison, our peers retain about 80 percent of their students within their programs.
• in course delivery at any level that lead to more rewarding experiences for both students and faculty, particularly those approaches built around the range of learning modes of our students and that can be generalized to all disciplines and scaled to larger class sizes.
• that lead to increasing undergraduate diversity including first-generation students and veterans.
• that lead to future-looking degree programs, with more multidisciplinary learning and competitive resume-building opportunities for our students.
• in other topics that clearly lead to increased retention, persistence, learning comprehension, student diversity, student competitiveness in the job market and positive external recognition of our academic programs.

Proposals need to explain how the proposed innovations are practicable, sustainable and scalable to a level that is significant to the Fulton Schools of Engineering. Proposals should also specify detailed resource needs to support the proposed activities. In preparing the resource request, proposers should leverage existing resources to the extent possible, including:

• Possible release time from course instruction obligations (supported by school director).
• Use of service time (supported by school director).
• Use of undergraduate teaching assistants and FURI students funded through the Vice Dean for Academic and Student Affairs.
• Use of Dean’s Fellowships (graduate students co-funded by the Dean’s Office and the faculty member with their external funding).
• External project funds aligned with the proposed efforts