92 / 106
87
Appendix F: Charles B. Vail College Fellows Program
In response to the Faculty's desire to promote undergraduate research and scholarship at
Birmingham-Southern College and to students' demands for more opportunities to engage in
research and scholarship with faculty members, the College Fellows Program was established in
the spring of 1993. This program of joint Faculty/student research and teaching projects
provides enriching academic opportunities for our students. Dr. Charles B. Vail, a 1945 graduate
of the College, has generously supported this program, which now bears his name.
The Vail College Fellows Program is a two-tiered program. In the first tier, students are
designated "Teaching Fellows" or "Research Fellows" and receive academic credit for their
pursuits. Examples of first-tier projects include teaching assistants, research assistants, science
lab tutors, and writing center tutors. (Teaching Fellows register for 398/498 credit; research
fellows do a contract for 393/493 credit.) Second-tier students known as "Distinguished
Teaching Fellows" and "Distinguished Research Fellows," receive a $1,000 scholarship applied
against their tuition. Second-tier projects offer more advanced opportunities: laboratory research
in the sciences, scholarly research in the humanities, or a first-tier project continuing for two
semesters, for example. Most of these projects lead to scholarly presentations and, often, joint
Faculty/student publications.
Applications for the program are due to the Provost’s Office in the spring, usually in early April.
The Faculty Development Committee reviews all applications and makes the selection of the
partners. The application form is located on the
Intranet .Interested faculty members propose a
project; select a student partner (sophomores, juniors, seniors); complete the form detailing the
nature of the project, giving the methodology, explaining the collaborative effort of the student
and the professor, and giving the final academic product (if a research project).
Collaborative
is
the key word for this program. College Fellows projects are not simply faculty-sponsored
projects, but are, instead, projects of true collaboration between student and faculty member.