Three Knox College faculty members are creating and leading projects that have received grants from the Associated Colleges of the Midwest (ACM). The projects, funded through the ACM Faculty Career Enhancement (FaCE) program, are collaborative initiatives to bring together faculty from several ACM colleges in order to leverage expertise and expand resources for students.

Knox faculty are involved with two projects, one dealing with undergraduate neuroscience education and the other focused on the study of the Mississippi River watershed and its inhabitants.

Judith Thorn, professor of biology at Knox, is one of the project leaders for the neuroscience education project. She will work with neuroscience faculty from other ACM schools: Rachel Bergstrom of Beloit College, Stephanie Fretham of Luther College, Clark Lindgren of Grinnell College, and Nancy Wall of Lawrence University.

The group plans to identify and develop resources that will strengthen neuroscience education across the ACM.

"The primary goal of this project is to share expertise and maximize resources across campuses," according to the group's grant proposal. "We anticipate creating projects that will involve sharing knowledge, equipment, or other resources across campuses, which collectively reduces institutional costs."

A key outcome will be "to engage undergraduates and the community more deeply with the field of neuroscience," because the participating faculty members have diverse experience and professional connections in the neuroscience field, the proposal states. "Further, we hope to develop long-term collaborative relationships that allow for expanded neuroscience coverage and experience as we strive to prepare our students for meaningful lives as lifelong neuroscience learners and scholars."

Thorn and Knox Associate Professor of Biology Esther Penick recently attended a workshop where project participants started to develop lab, classroom, outreach, and program-level resources. Thorn said that new laboratories are expected to be incorporated into neuroscience and developmental biology classes, starting as early as fall 2018.

The Mississippi River studies project includes three Knox faculty members as project leaders: Katherine Adelsberger, the Douglas and Maria Bayer Endowed Chair in Earth Science, and Monica Berlin, professor of English. They will collaborate with faculty from other ACM institutions who represent a wide range of academic disciplines: Eric Carroll, Marlon James, Alicia Johnson, and John Kim from Macalester College; Jodi Enos-Berlage and Jane Hawley from Luther College; and Martin St. Clair from Coe College.

Project leaders plan to build faculty interest and develop infrastructure for Mississippi Studies, a new interdisciplinary research initiative that re-imagines the river and its tributaries "as a coherent cultural and research corridor," the grant proposal states.

Participants in the Mississippi Studies project also will work toward a long-term objective of creating a research barge that travels on the river and "encourages faculty working in close proximity to each other to integrate scientific research with the arts, humanities, and social sciences."

A total of five projects, including the ones on neuroscience education and Mississippi Studies, received almost $87,000 in FaCE grants in the spring 2018 funding cycle. Nine ACM institutions and 31 faculty members are involved in the projects.

The FaCE program is supported by funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.