Co-Taught Course Development Awards

Eligibility

Tenure-track and teaching-track (assistant, associate, and full teaching professors) faculty in the humanities and humanistic social sciences within the College of Arts & Sciences at the University of Washington, Seattle. We encourage teams of two faculty to develop new or significantly reimagined lower-level (100- and 200-level) humanities courses to be co-taught.

Scope and Funding

Faculty in the College of Arts & Sciences have long voiced a desire for more opportunities to co-teach with colleagues. This pilot category of funding responds to that call. The Simpson Center views co-teaching as an effective way to deepen intellectual and pedagogical exchange among faculty, enrich our lower-level humanities curriculum, and demonstrate to our students the value of collaboration and learning from different perspectives on the same topic. 

Proposed courses should be built around an engaging topic, likely to draw a broad range of undergraduate students and significant enrollment, defined as 60 students or more. Courses should introduce students to multiple humanistic approaches and perspectives. 

The two faculty members may come from different departments or the same department. If from the same department, their proposal should explain how they bring divergent expertise to the proposed course topic. If faculty are from different departments, the course may be listed under two different course prefixes that meet concurrently. 

The first iteration of the course must be co-taught in person during the 2027-28 academic year. Subsequent iterations of the course should be taught on a regular basis in following years. If other curricular needs or work responsibilities prevent faculty from continuing to co-teach the course, subsequent iterations may be taught by a single instructor drawing on the course materials jointly developed for the first iteration. In those cases, the non-teaching instructor might agree to guest lead or facilitate one or more classes so that students might still benefit from engaging with both course creators.

As part of the application process, applicants' chairs need to provide a brief statement endorsing the proposal, discussing the value of the new or reimagined course to the departmental and broader humanities curriculum, and assessing the feasibility and sustainability of offering the course. The Simpson Center will be unable to provide teaching assistant support.

Each successful faculty applicant will receive $5,000 to be used in one or two of these three ways:

1. for summer salary (paid during late June 2027)

2. as research funds (for research and course-related expenses during fiscal years 2026-27 and 2027-28)

3. for hiring an hourly graduate research assistant who will gather and organize course materials (for work during summer 2026)

Terms of Award

The course must be co-taught for the first time during the 2027-28 academic year and offered regularly thereafter.

In the spirit of learning from one another and strengthening a culture of conversation across the humanities at UW, spring 2026 awardees will be required to give a brief presentation on their course development work at a research collaboration and co-teaching "showcase" in October 2027. Presenters will share their course topic and design, and lessons learned from the process of co-developing it. The showcase will be open to the public and attended by Simpson Center Executive Board members.

Evaluation Criteria

Co-teaching course development applications will be evaluated according to the following four criteria:

1. Quality of the proposed course topic and preliminary design

2. Likelihood of the topic and design to appeal to a broad range of undergraduate students and attract significant enrollment 

3. The ability of the background/expertise of the two faculty members to bring multiple and different humanistic perspectives into conversation 

4. The feasibility and sustainability of offering the course given departmental curricular needs and the faculty members' other obligations 

Meeting Before Applying

We recommend that those applying for co-taught course development awards consult with the Simpson Center in advance of the application deadline. To request a meeting, please contact Rachel Arteaga at rarteaga@uw.edu.