The Lafayette Libraries have received a $22,000 grant to build a student fellowship program that will help enhance the affordability of course materials at Lafayette. The grant was awarded by the Pennsylvania Consortium for the Liberal Arts as part of an award from the Arthur Vining Davis Foundation “to enhance the curricular and co-curricular excellence of its member colleges.”
The funds will be used to develop the Fellowship and launch an initial cohort of 3-4 student Fellows. Fellows will have the chance to tailor projects to their interests, but may participate in work such as assisting with outreach and promotion of a campus survey about the affordability of course materials; creating programming for Open Education week; and organizing guest speakers to educate the campus about textbook affordability issues. The grant allows for stipends of $2,500 per student for the academic year. Applications will open in mid-May — anyone interested in more information or who would like to be notified when the application period opens may sign up for updates.
The Fellowship program is a further step in the Libraries’ efforts to support and promote the values of Open Education, both at Lafayette and in the wider academic community. One of the outcomes of the grant is to make our work generalizable across PCLA and other higher education institutions. All materials produced as a result of the Fellows’ work will be published Open so that our model may be replicated by other schools.