The College received such outstanding proposals for the Program of Excellence, however, that three honorable mentions were named, each of which is eligible for partial funding and Program of Excellence designation.

The “The Scholar-Educator Post-Doctoral Fellowship Program in Neuroscience and Behavior” weds a rigorous academic curriculum with a cutting-edge research agenda. It substantially enhances the educational experience of a large number of ISU students while promising to add substantively to knowledge in several disciplines. It draws on the expertise of a dozen faculty representing 4 departments in the college and one external to the college. It leverages the $90,000 of Program of Excellence funding into $172,000—almost double that provided. Employing a scholar-educator model, this program establishes two scholar-educator post-doctoral fellowships in neuroscience and behavior. These fellows will teach courses, engage in research, mentor students, and be mentored by faculty. Participating faculty are from the Departments of Biological Sciences, Chemistry, Philosophy, and Psychology, as well as from the Central Illinois Neuroscience Foundation. While there is officially no principal investigator among the twelve faculty involved in this project, Olson recognized Professor Paul Garris of Biological Sciences as playing a leadership role in related work for several years.

The three programs earning honorable mention are eligible to receive partial funding and designation as a Program of Excellence. The first, “Biomathematics: MS Sequence and Cross-Disciplinary Research at the Interface of Biology and Mathematics,” is a new master’s sequence that incorporates cross-disciplinary research as integral to the curriculum; it draws on the expertise of 17 faculty from two departments to create an innovative and much-needed program. The second, “The Mind Project Learning and Research Center,” builds on the existing strengths of ISU’s Mind Project and is “positioned to become not only the Internet destination for state-of-the-art research and curriculum materials, but a digital public square where innovation abounds;” this project draws on faculty from 9 CAS departments plus faculty from other departments both at ISU and elsewhere. The third, “Nanotechnology Education and Research,” is an innovative integration of an academic program, a research agenda, technology transfer to industry, public outreach, and national and international collaboration among researchers; it is headed by an interdisciplinary team of faculty from 4 CAS departments (Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, and Biological Sciences) as well as from CeMaST and Technology.

The guidelines for the Program of Excellence specify that the program should be clearly interdisciplinary, drawing substantively on the disciplinary expertise of two or more academic departments. Unique and innovative disciplinary collaborations were highly encouraged, even those across collegial borders. The program itself should be clearly distinctive, unlike any other program in the state of Illinois. As such, the program should attract considerable national attention. The proposed program should draw on existing personnel and resources as much as possible. The program may be an undergraduate or graduate certificate program, a new minor, a new sequence in an existing major, or a program devoted exclusively to primary research.