Department Technology Champions

The Department of Mathematics and Statistics awards the Departmental Technology Champion Grant to teams of faculty, students, and faculty/student teams to explore new technology tools or to improve technology usage in our department. These teams will explore new technology tools via conference/workshop attendance or some other experience and to bring the new technology tool back to the department by hosting a training session. Alternatively, teams can set out to learn a new skill outside of any formal training. Ideally, each team will consist of at least one faculty and at least one student member. In some cases, teams can make a strong argument for an all-faculty or all-student team. These will be considered but are not preferred.

The following teams have been awarded this grant:

  • Dr. Weaver and Dr. Taylor developed a peer mentor program for the SAS certification exam. Students engage in review sessions and receive a stipend to cover the cost of the certification exam. This project ran from Spring 2023 to Spring 2024.
  • Jacqueline Jovanovic ’23 received a Departmental Technology Championship Grant to attend the Carnegie Mellon Sports Analytics Conference and report on the technology trends used in sports analytics.
  • Dr. Riggs and Dr. Trocki received a Departmental Technology Champions grant to extend a Teaching & Learning Grant to revamp Applied Calculus. The team also included Professors Cantwell, Elrod, Flores, and Scherich. The project ran during the Summer of 2023.
  • Dr. Barker received a Departmental Technology Champions Grant to support training on a qualitative analysis software Dedoose. Part of the grant was to share findings with the Elon community. This was accomplished by holding several workshops for the Elon faculty during the 2023 – 2024 academic year.

Each team will provide a training opportunity of some kind for students and/or faculty in the department to disseminate the new tool. The training session should be held by the end of the academic year in which the grant was received.

To support this endeavor, each team will have access to up to $2500 to pay registration or travel fees for teams to attend conferences or training sessions and to attend a team lunch before or after the training.

Applications should include:

  • Name of team members and areas (mathematics/statistics)
    • If student team members have not been identified, please indicate a plan for identifying and recruiting student team members.
  • Intended technology tool (if known) and motivation for learning this tool or how it might benefit mathematics and/or statistics faculty and students
  • Plan for learning new technology (online webinar, training session, self-paced tutorial, conference)
    • Include dates/references for the plan.
  • Plan for disseminating to the department (record tutorial video, hold office hours, host a meeting, etc.) and dates of anticipated sharing
  • Budget needs
    • Include a detailed budget.
    • Indicate any other sources of funding and need for additional department funding.

This experience has a rolling deadline. Completed applications should be sent to the chair of the Mathematics and Statistics Department.