Faculty group sets big goal for new fund

The Faculty Colloquium on Excellence in Teaching has announced the creation of the Marion Mack Endowment for Scholarship and Teaching Excellence, a unique collaboration of the IU faculty, trustees and the community. \nThe purpose of the fund, as laid out in the Spring 2002 FACET newsletter, will be "to serve as a living memorial to Marion Mack by supporting IU's ongoing commitment to excellence in teaching and learning."\nFACET was founded in 1989 and according to IU Homepages (www.homepages.indiana.edu) "was designed to recognize and enhance outstanding teaching throughout the IU system and for promoting continued development of teaching excellence among colleagues at IU and beyond." The committee also sponsors the annual Indiana Faculty Leadership Institute for post-tenure faculty and the Associate Faculty Conference and the Future Faculty Teaching Fellows Program.\nThe new fund was created by P.A. Mack, an IU trustee from 1992 to 1998, and named in honor of his wife, the late Marian Mack, a former teacher and enthusiastic FACET supporter. When announced at the FACET retreat in May, the Mack Endowment received generous support from the IU faculty, including some $20,000 in donations pledged among 35 FACET members.\n"We were startled by such an unplanned outpouring of support for the project," said FACET co-director Sharon Hamilton, who is also the director for the campus writing center and a Chancellor's Professor of English at IUPUI.\nDavid Malik was not so surprised. Malik, a chemistry professor at IUPUI, donated $1,000 to the project. \n"(The Macks) have, over the years, supported the scholarship of teaching that extended beyond the classroom," Malik said. "I think many people in FACET recognize these attributes and felt moved by the opportunity to create an endowment in her name."\nHamilton called the Mack's commitment to education "extraordinary." She attributed the surprise donations to FACET's dedication to its work. \n"I credit this outpouring of support to the importance that FACET members place on excellence in teaching and learning at IU," Hamilton said. "When FACET members come together, they create a genuine synergy that is palpable -- and in this case, tangible."\nHamilton said the fund set up by Mack was unusual because a member of the community and former IU trustee "has followed up his expectations for excellence by providing financial resources."\nIU President Myles Brand has made a commitment to use IU Foundation money to provide matching funds equal to the sum of all gifts to the Mack Endowment for the next five years.\n"FACET faculty are not just enjoying and appreciating this generosity but are contributing their own financial and intellectual resources to bringing this center to fruition," Hamilton said.\nThe fund already contains over $65,000 including the initial $25,000 donation P.A. Mack made in honor of his late wife. FACET faculty members have also pledged nearly $35,000 to the endowment. FACET co-director Robert Orr has high ambitions for the endowment.\n"We do have a goal to raise between $500,000 and $1,000,000 over the next five years," Orr said.\nA committee is in development to establish a charter for the Mack Center for Inquiry on Teaching and Learning, which will be founded through the endowment. In the first week of October, a selection committee comprised of FACET co-directors and P.A. Mack will select the committee to be called the Charter Mack Fellows. \nHamilton said all FACET members are eligible for the committee, but only one fellow per campus will be named. \n"The establishment of this fund … and this charter is visionary," Hamilton said. "With its focus on the scholarship of teaching and learning, it highlights the relationship among teaching, research and service to enhance the intellectual capital of the University and state. All will benefit -- our faculty, our students and our community"