The University of Hartford has announced two faculty members that have been given Harrison Faculty Development Award Grants.

Harrison Faculty Development Grants are annual internal grant awards intended to “support the needs of mid- to late- career faculty and the University of Hartford by supporting significant scholarly efforts.”

They are made possible by a generous gift from a group of donors to honor past University of Hartford President, Walter Harrison.

One of the awardees is Associate Professor of English Bryan Sinche.

Dr. Sinche will complete a monograph titled “Published by Himself: Self-Publication and Nineteenth-Century African American Literature”.

This scholarly project blends literary and historical methods to examine self-published African American writing of the nineteenth century.

Dr. Sinche will recover a set of writings that has escaped critical attention while inviting new sets of authors to discuss the literature.

He will be examining publication as a “fundamentally social act, as a public textual performance” and reconsider the meanings of publication and authorship.

The second awardee is Associate Professor of Biology Stewart Frankel.

Dr. Frankel will be examining pedological applications of two high-impact practices in biology courses. The first project examines and builds upon earlier collected data on methods to improve student critical thinking skills in Molecular Cell biology.

These methods include an explicit description of skills and metacognitive awareness of the learning and conception process, among others.

The second project examines collaborative learning to “enhance student engagement and promote higher order learning in the Biology lecture”.

Both awardees will use funds to assist in the development of their projects including publication of the finished products.