Hanna Aggen
Dr. Layton Field and Dr. Abby Kula were awarded a Lilly Faculty Fellowships. Both will participate in the two-year Lilly Faculty Fellows Program. This program will include four conferences in Indianapolis and Chicago. Kula and Field will also receive $8,000 that will go towards launching a faculty development Campus Project here at the Mount.
The Lilly Faculty Fellowships grant is available specifically to tenured faculty members. Kula believes the emphasis on tenured professors is because the program administrators want to ensure that the fellows have leadership at their school that they can implement in the program. Kula has been chair of the Environmental Sustainability and Stewardship Committee for a few years and has worked with leaders across campus. Furthermore, Field attributes the inspiration behind their successful application to Kula.
Field believes that faculty should take the time to ensure they are forming themselves to do that work in the most effective way possible. He goes on to say, “This fellowship will help us bring that formation back to campus for our faculty!” Kula and Field expressed how important receiving this fellowship was to themselves and the University. With the many challenges higher education is facing, including lower enrollment, financial pressures as well as political ones, along with people no longer seeing value in a degree, Field believes a fellowship such as this will help take the Mount on a mission to face them. Congratulations to Kula and Field.