News

Sona Andrews, Portland State's provost and vice president for Academic Affairs, has announced the Provost's Challenge Awards in the Inspiration Challenge category. The projects, totaling $200,000, offer a variety of solutions that use technology to improve student success and graduation rates. For Andrews' full announcement, go here. 

The Inspiration Challenge awards are part of “reThink PSU,” a larger campus-wide effort underway to improve teaching and learning at the University by investing in innovation. Earlier this month, Andrews announced 10 awards in the Reframing and Acceleration categories totaling $2.3 million. 

Here is the list of Inspiration Challenge projects with links to their descriptions:

• Online Academic Advising & Career Development Modules
• Continuing Engagement for Social Change: At and Beyond Portland State 
• Last Five Miles: Coaching Students to Degree Completion
• Reaching Out: Utilizing Technology to Enhance the Student Experience
• Faculty Advising Initiative
• Tools for Improving Orientation Advising
• Digitizing the Process: Development of a digital Academic Requirements Committee (ARC) Petition
• PDX Open: Reducing Student Textbook Costs
• Mentors Advocating and Promoting Success (MAPS): Mapping an Online Presence for UNST Mentors Supporting Retention
• Promoting Excellence in Teaching through Online Faculty and TA Development
• Automate batch degree audits
• Build an automated/online major change mechanism that includes the ability to enforce the requirement for UGE students to declare a major by the time they earn 90 credits
• Digital Badges for Creativity and Critical Thinking
• Mobile and Augmented Reality Resources for Learning
• Using Technology to collect and analyze data to answer key questions on the success of students in STEM at PSU

For more details on the funding of these projects, go here. 

For more information about ReThink PSU and the Provost's Challenge, go here.