Call for Faculty Members for Fall 2024 and Fall 2025 Semesters

Lehigh Launch is an immersive, integrative semester-away program for first-year students at Lehigh. The program allows a specially selected group of students to spend their first semester with Lehigh faculty and classmates in a location that supports academic and co-curricular learning across a range of related courses. The Lehigh Launch semester is available to students for the same cost as a regular on-campus semester, and a student’s financial aid package applies to the program costs.

A committee comprised of faculty, professional staff, and administrators worked throughout the Spring 2019 semester to develop the structure and core academic and programmatic goals of Lehigh Launch. The Lehigh Launch curriculum:

• Fosters the foundational skills at the core of Lehigh’s model of liberal education; faculty from all colleges can teach in the program, with the note that their courses must be approved to meet general education or distribution requirements designation.
• Maximizes the opportunities of a living-learning environment, using place-based learning to help students make connections between courses.
• Leverages cohort-based learning, including collaborative projects that infuse both classroom learning and other program activities.
• Offers courses that fill distribution requirements in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences (see below for note about engineering and applied science).
• Develops students’ intellectual curiosity, independence, creativity, and leadership skills.
• Integrates with programming in the Spring semester to provide a full-year student experience.

Lehigh Launch is seeking faculty members to teach in the Semester in the American West and the Semester Abroad in the Fall 2024 and Fall 2025 semester. (After the successful completion of one program, we work to support a second year if the faculty member wishes, but this is neither required nor guaranteed.) The lead faculty member typically teaches two courses during the Lehigh Launch semester, though one course obligation may be arranged in certain circumstances. The faculty member’s college receives funds for replacement courses. The provost’s office welcomes faculty members from all colleges to participate in Lehigh Launch. Lehigh Launch students enroll in four Lehigh courses, each closely linked to the place of learning, and each designed to help students develop foundational academic skills.

The Semester in the American West is located in two locations in western Wyoming (Sublette County and Fremont County) as well as Santa Fe, New Mexico, with several days of learning on the drive through Colorado to Santa Fe. Multiple Lehigh faculty members teach in the Semester in the American West. One professor serves as the lead faculty coordinator. A program assistant is also present all Lehigh-led portions of the semester. Other Lehigh Launch faculty members either teach throughout the program, or teach half of specific courses (or 2 credit, half-semester courses) in either western Wyoming or Santa Fe, New Mexico. Students from all colleges and IC programs have participated in the Semester in the American West. Given particular interest from College of Engineering students, the program would like to include a 2 or 4 credit course appropriate for these students. The Semester in the American West both starts and ends earlier than on-campus classes; faculty and students return home right before Thanksgiving, with faculty continuing some remote teaching and project supervision after Thanksgiving.

The Lehigh Launch International option has been taught in Ecuador for Fall 2022 and 2023, but will be moving to a new location—Chile, with a home base in Santiago and academic excursions outside the city that align with the curriculum—for Fall 2024.  The program structure will remain the same: two courses, including the integrative seminar, are taught by the Lehigh faculty lead; the other two courses are taught by adjunct faculty who are local to the location.  Lehigh partners with IES Abroad to deliver the other courses and the program as a whole. A program assistant who is a recent Lehigh graduate provides assistance and social support for students throughout the semester. The program has the same semester timeline as the on-campus semester. The students and faculty from both program sites come together a few days before the spring term for a mini-conference and on-campus orientation.

At the core of Lehigh Launch is place-based learning. Faculty teaching in the program should be prepared to teach coursework that takes advantage of the location. As the Lehigh Launch selection process proceeds, faculty should be prepared to describe how their course(s) will incorporate place-based learning. Lehigh Launch courses should not simply focus their content on the program location, but also incorporate direct interaction with people and places available during the program.

Faculty interested in teaching in Lehigh Launch should submit their CV to Cheryl Matherly (International) and Jennifer Jensen (American West), along with a brief proposal answering the following questions:

• Why do you want to serve as a faculty member in Lehigh Launch?
• What course(s) do you propose to teach, and how would you draw on place-based learning in your proposed location to strengthen these courses?
• Lehigh Launch is an experiential, integrative learning experience where many learning activities cross traditional academic boundaries. Please talk a bit about how this approach to teaching and learning aligns with your experiences and interests.  Please discuss any experiences teaching with other faculty from other disciplines and/or with developing experiential learning programs.
• Have you discussed the possibility of teaching in Lehigh Launch with your department chair?
• For Chile only: Do you speak Spanish and at what level?

Faculty from the Lehigh Launch Steering Committee will play a significant role in the selection process and will make a recommendation to the provost for final approval.  Both programs seek to have Fall 2024 program faculty selected by mid-November 2023. If possible, faculty should submit their initial proposals by October 20; if more time is needed, please contact Jennifer Jensen or Cheryl Matherly to begin the selection process. We ask faculty interested in teaching in Fall 2025 to reach out now to express initial interest.