APPLICATION FOR INSTITUTIONAL MEMBERSHIP IN
THE CIRTL NETWORK
Fall 2025
(Editable MS Word version | PDF Version)
Please see CIRTL for All: A Membership Plan for Sustained Impact for information about the CIRTL network structure, core ideas and goals, and member institution expectations.
CIRTL’s mission is to develop future faculty committed to implementing and advancing evidence-based teaching practices to enrich undergraduate education that is accessible to all learners. While preparing future STEM faculty remains one specialized area of focus of our work, we invite students from across all disciplines to engage in our programs.
The membership committee invites you to use this application process as a way of showcasing areas of alignment that you see between your institutional goals and CIRTL’s mission and opportunities. We also hope it allows you to begin identifying and developing connections across your campus that you think you will need to establish a successful local CIRTL community. With the recognition that some CIRTL terminology and concepts take time to fully understand, we encourage you to put your ideas forward with the expectation that if you join our Network you’ll continue to refine them and receive support through onboarding and mentorship.
Note: The application submission form requests contact information and a short CV or NSF-style biosketch for the Institutional Leader and Administrative Co-Leader, as well as contact information for the university official who can commit the institution to CIRTL Membership.
Maximum page length = 12, with 12 pt font.
Institutional Interest
Characteristics of Your University
CIRTL Structure and Organizational Capacity
CIRTL Engagement and Evaluation
Plans for a Local CIRTL Learning Community
Plans for Contributions to the Cross-Network Learning Community
Institutional Interest
1. How will participating in the Network contribute to achieving the strategic plan or vision of your university?
2. What local, regional, and national partnerships does your institution currently participate in related to preparing future faculty (graduate students and postdoctoral scholars), if any?
Tips
Strong applications should discuss how joining the Network will align with your institution’s strategic plan or vision with respect to preparing future faculty and/or more broadly.
Experience with the professional development of future faculty through programs at the institutional or national levels is beneficial (but not necessary).
Characteristics of Your University
3. What are the key characteristics and recent trends of the populations you would like to have participate in your local CIRTL population?
4. Describe existing opportunities such as areas of expertise, distinctive characteristics, resources, initiatives, activities, or programs offered at your institution to support the professional development in teaching and learning of your university’s future faculty.
5. What challenges do you foresee in aligning your institutional work with CIRTL’s mission and learning goals, or in building and implementing a local CIRTL community? We will use this question to better understand how to support your engagement and connect you with resources or mentors within our Network.
Tips
Applications should demonstrate the potential for institutional impact on instructional faculty through producing graduate students and postdoctoral scholars who go on to academic careers or having other important impacts on teaching and learning.
Please include the number of doctoral students and postdoctoral scholars you plan to support; any additional information about the number of TAs (if registered), professional students, international students, disciplines or demographics you’re able to include will help us understand the context of your institution & target population.
Special characteristics of an institution’s graduates may also be important. A meritorious application should outline these special characteristics and show that a substantial core of the institution’s doctoral programs will participate.
CIRTL Structure and Organizational Capacity
6. Where will CIRTL activities be housed, and how will they fit within the current organizational structure of your institution? Describe the key personnel involved in administering and supporting CIRTL activities. Who will be the primary (i.e. Directors and Co-Directors) and secondary administrators (i.e. Provost or Dean) of your CIRTL activities?
Tips
Applications should demonstrate a commitment from upper administration to implement the CIRTL program on their campus. Strong applications will have an Institutional Leader and an Administrative Co-Leader that have collectively demonstrated success in research, teaching and learning, program management, advocacy, marketing, and evaluation.
The leaders should be situated appropriately within their institution to engage future faculty. This could include, but not be limited to, a Graduate School, a Provost office, a College or School, or a Teaching Center. A vital CIRTL learning community will need the engagement of administrators, faculty, and staff on behalf of future faculty.
An internal organizational structure that promotes sustainability of your CIRTL work and membership is important. Sustainable programs typically draw engagement beyond their core team (e.g., advisory board, faculty mentors, highly engaged students returning as learning community facilitators.)
CIRTL Engagement and Evaluation
7. Describe the general process you will use to evaluate the impacts of your programs. (You can use a specific program or activity offered by your local learning community to illustrate this process if it’s helpful). Identify the person, position, or office that will conduct program evaluation.
Tips
The program should have the capacity for creating an overall assessment plan that your team and campus administrators can use to determine if CIRTL is successful on your campus. Applications should also include nascent plans for evaluating the local CIRTL activities; this need not require a professional evaluator and resources to assist in developing these plans are available to new CIRTL members.
Plans for a Local CIRTL Learning Community
8. What is your vision for how future faculty, current faculty, and staff will interact and be connected to form a local CIRTL learning community?
9. Propose what you picture as potential Associate, Practitioner and Scholar level programs (see CIRTL Achievement Levels).
Tips
Applications should articulate a clear plan for developing new, or advancing current, learning communities and associated programming that aligns with the CIRTL learning goals. The learning community should be multidisciplinary and have a design that will connect individual program participants to form a learning community.
Consider plans for reaching out to future faculty participants including marketing, social media, and other outreach strategies.
The application should include initial ideas on how students may attain the Associate, Practitioner, and perhaps Scholar levels (see CIRTL Achievement Levels).
Plans for Contributions to the Cross-Network Learning Community
10. What is a strength or area of expertise of your institution that you’d like to bring to the Network as a workshop, course, or program? How does this area connect to the CIRTL Learning Goals?
11. (For international institutions) Currently, the majority of CIRTL institutions are located in North America. How do you picture your institution engaging given potential logistical and cultural differences (e.g., time zones and interest in synchronous vs. asynchronous programs, language differences, etc.)?
Tips
Strong applications should describe the programming or expertise that will be offered by the institution to future faculty through the Network. Typically, one such contribution would be made by the end of the second year of membership.