Congratulations to Assistant Professor Malissa Taylor for being selected as one of only eight Lilly Fellows for the 2020-2021 academic year. It is a great achievement, as the Fellowship is highly competitive and involes two rounds of vetting and interviews with the Selection Committee.
Established in 1986, the Lilly Fellowship for Teaching Excellence enables promising early-career faculty to cultivate teaching excellence in a special year-long collaboration. It has fostered leadership in teaching by training over 240 faculty members, many of whom have gone on to win Distinguished Teaching Awards and College Outstanding Teaching Awards, chair departments, and serve in other leadership positions across campus.
During their fellowship year, participants attend bi-weekly seminars on teaching pedagogy, develop a new course or substantially redesign an existing one, complete a teaching portfolio that includes teaching reflections and activities adapted to the course, and work with mentors to anticipate many of the challenges and rewards of faculty life at UMass Amherst. After the fellowship year, faculty demonstrate leadership on the topic of teaching by participating in teaching-related workshops, collaborating on teaching evaluation projects, or participating in other teaching-related roles and functions on campus.