Imagine an engineering class that includes lab experiences based on simple systems built with Lego building blocks and small microcomputers.

This is an example of the curriculum ideas for undergraduate studies, which is the focus of research of the first Miller Faculty Development Fellowships.

The fellowship program was announced in February by Iowa State President Martin Jischke to give faculty opportunities to enrich the undergraduate experience at ISU. The final eleven, selected from 80 proposals, were announced Monday by John Kozak, ISU provost.

John Anderson, director of university relations, said the purpose behind the fellowship program is “to get [faculty] more involved or give them the resources to get more involved in updating and modernizing the curricula.”

The fellowships are named for F. Wendell Miller, an attorney and farm manager from Calhoun County who died in 1995. Miller’s will left the bulk of his estate to the University of Iowa and ISU and encouraged the advancement of academic endeavors. Anderson said the Miller Endowment Trust was established from the Miller estate. The interest and income from the trust was divided equally between ISU and the U of I.

The eleven fellowships will receive nearly $245,000 in funding to cover costs of releasing the fellowship awardees from teaching duties, summer salaries and direct research costs.

“Toying With Technology” is the name of the fellowship that will study an engineering class that includes using Legos. Nearly $20,000 will be given to professors Lawrence Genalo and Charles Wright of the college of engineering to look into a course for students in non-technical fields.

Steve Richardson, director of the Center for Teaching Excellence, said, “The whole idea is for non-engineering students to get some hands-on appreciation for engineering — how things you can use around the house and garage work.”

Another fellowship, led by assistant professor of philosophy Hector Avalos, will study diversity education. Richardson said this “will make an amazing difference on diversity studies here.”

Richardson said freshmen will not be learning beginning English with the same methods as previous students. A fellowship will be given to Margaret Graham, associate professor of English, to redesign freshman English.

“This will change the English 104 and 105 courses dramatically,” Richardson said.

Other fellowships will research virtual reality machining in a manufacturing course, Plato’s Cave (an on-line database of visuals for undergraduate students), new methods and techniques in chemistry courses, high technology approaches to calculus, faculty leadership development, expanding the services of the Writing Center in Ross Hall and studying agribusiness changes since the end of the Cold War. Richardson said, “It will make a big difference in how people see education at the university. That’s the whole idea of the Miller Endowment.”