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College of Engineering
Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

Richard M. Felder Teaching Excellence Award

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Dr. Richard M. Felder

Dr. Richard M. Felder is the Hoechst Celanese Professor Emeritus of Chemical Engineering. He received a B.Ch.E. from the City College of New York in 1962 and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Princeton University in 1966. He worked for the Atomic Energy Research Establishment and Brookhaven National Laboratory before joining the NC State faculty in 1969. Dr. Felder is renowned for his work in chemical engineering education. He is a coauthor of Elementary Principles of Chemical Processes (4th edition, Wiley, 2015), which since 1978 has been used as the introductory chemical engineering text by roughly 90% of chemical engineering departments in North America. He has also coauthored over 150 education-related papers and over 100 “Random Thoughts” columns. Together with his wife and colleague, Dr. Rebecca Brent, he has presented over 600 teaching and faculty development workshops and seminars throughout the United States and abroad. View his legacy website here: https://engr.ncsu.edu/stem-resources/

The Endowment

The Richard M. Felder Teaching Excellence Endowment honors Dr. Felder, who not only made an enormous impact on students during his 30 years of teaching in the department, but who has been one of the preeminent chemical engineering educators in the country for the last half a decade. The Endowment, when filled, will enable the selection of an annual faculty recipient of the Richard M. Felder Teaching Excellence Award. It is designed to demonstrate the department’s commitment to excellence in teaching and to promote and honor faculty excellence in teaching.

Award Guidelines

  • The Felder Teaching Excellence Endowment (henceforth, “The Endowment”) will give up to two awards per year. Typical awards are anticipated to range between $1,000 – $5,000 and to be of one year in duration. In any year, two, one, or no awards may be given. If insufficient funds are available, the call for proposals may limit the amount.
  • The awardees may be individuals or groups of faculty members, including emerita, and/or Ph.D. students in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (henceforth, “Department”). Partners may include participants from other departments.
  • Award-winning projects should support professional and educational development in the Department, be aligned with the teaching mission of the Department, and will ideally promote best practices in higher education and integrate new teaching practices that enhance student learning. Uses may include, but are not limited to:
    • National conference/workshop participation
    • Continuing education/training
    • New course development
    • Seed funding for grants related to teaching
    • Classroom enhancement

Selection and Responsibilities of Awardees

  • The Endowment creates a spending account by the end of July each year.
  • A request for grant proposals should be sent to the Department faculty and Ph.D. students by the Department Head or designee each spring, with a typical due date of late March or early April.
  • The timing of this cycle can be changed, if needed.
  • Once proposals are submitted, the Department Head or designee appoints a selection committee comprising of three to five faculty members, preferably including one or two Department tenure-track or tenured faculty members, one or two Department teaching faculty members, and one or two external faculty in Engineering Education. Committee members should not have conflicts of interest with proposal authors.
  • The selection committee will review proposals, submit a recommendation to the Department Head, who will then announce the awardees.
  • At the end of the fiscal year, recipients should write a one-page report on how their support funds were used and make a short presentation at a faculty meeting or seminar during the next fall semester.
  • Funds cannot be carried over to future years except under special circumstances and with approval of the Department Head.
  • Multi-year funds can be requested in the original proposal; additional years of funding must be approved by the selection committee based on review of a one-page report of current progress due at the same time as new proposals. Additional years of funding can also be requested in a second new proposal.

Proposal Due Date