Over the last decade, a wealth of empirical evidence has accumulated describing the merits of team-based, collaborative, and interdisciplinary research, including: increased productivity among researchers, greater citation impact, increased multi-sector engagement, and the generation of novel solutions to grand challenges. Funding agencies have…

The technique of "group-averaging" produces colorings of a sphere that have the symmetries of various polyhedra. The concepts are accessible at the undergraduate level, without being well-known in typical courses on algebra or geometry. The material makes an excellent discovery project, especially for students with some background in…

The University of Connecticut (UConn) is a public Carnegie Foundation Research institution with 14 schools and colleges that enrolls more than 18,000 undergraduate students at the main campus in Storrs, CT. Beginning in 1999, First-Year Experience (FYE) seminars were offered to entering freshman students. Since that time, the size of the program…

The University of Southern Maine (USM) designed and implemented an internal Research Cluster Seed Fund competition with the goals of building USM faculty expertise to address industry and community needs, deepening the impact of research through an interdisciplinary approach to solving problems, and leveraging external funding to sustain…

Extension faculty in Adams, Brown, and Highland Counties (Ohio) work as a cluster group to enhance interdisciplinary program delivery and develop specialized skills. Clustering also increases networking among clientele and enhances extension's public image. (SK)

Oakton Community College is organized into four learning clusters, each comprising a group small enough to maintain "recognizability" and a sense of belonging. Each cluster has approximately 600 FTE students, 30 full-time faculty members, one learning resource faculty member, three counselors, and its own dean. The first of these…